Italian Super Cup Champs!

Ok, so I think this is a rather meaningless title as it is last year's winner of the Italian Championship (us) against the winner of the Italian Cup (Faenza), plus it's the beginning of the year, and the teams aren't exactly the same, but.... it felt great anyways :)

During warm-ups I felt more calm than I thought I would, which is so key to playing well for me. Feeling "at home" at our home gym is still in process for me, and it will be another adjustment to play in front of so many people. When we ran out of the tunnel 30 minutes before game time, the gym was already electrifying. Music was boomin', the crowd went nuts, and it was already pretty packed. There were more people that early than Ribera pulled in about 5 games (Attendance reached to 2200 last night!). Most of my teammates are already used to that, but it was an amazing feeling for me. I tried to soak it in.

I had a pretty good game according to my standards (13 points). We had injuries, like I said, so I played A LOT! We all did with such a short bench. We were winning most of the game, but it was pretty close at the end, and we won by 3 points. There was a celebration afterwards. Cameras were everywhere, kids were all around our bench asking for autographs and pictures. And since I'm new, I think I had even more of a crowd because people were wanting to meet me and tell me how awesome I was. I can totally see how stuff like this goes straight to people's heads. I almost couldn't get back to the locker room! I was trying to be the sweet, representative of Christ player that I strive to be, so I wore my smile and patience for everyone. I'd do just about anything for those sweet kids though. There was this one little boy, still in the stands with his dad right above the tunnel where I was heading, and he wanted a picture. Quick thinking told me that no good picture could be taken through bars plus me being 4 feet below. I climbed up for the picture, and they thought that was fantastic. I need to always keep in mind the amount of influence we as players have on these youngsters. When we were there, we certainly looked up to people like us.

Anyways, well, I heard that things do get ugly with the fans when things go bad. They yell and curse, and want the coach fired just like LSU fans do when they don't play well. But one can't think about shooting slumps and losing streaks. When the fear of those are present, that's when they happen for sure. But last night, they treated us like rock stars. Mamma mia, life's crazy...

There's a highlight video right now on our main website page right now. Just give it time to let it load. It's at: http://www.tarantocrasbasket.com/site/index.asp

Italian lesson of the blog: "Prego". This word is not just the name of the spaghetti sauce. Italians use it for many things including, "you're welcome", "go ahead" (as in "can I take your order" or like "after you" when holding the door). Did you say "grazie" for the lesson??? Prego :)