And the streak ends....

We lost tonight... Our record ends here, on the road at one of the other top team's place (Schio), at 16 games. It was a good run, but we just did not shoot the ball well tonight. We took all the shots we normally do, but they didn't fall and we didn't compensate with our defense. But we have the Italian Cup next weekend, so if we win our first game and Schio wins their game, we will have our chance of revenge... which is really something we want now because they shot a layup at the buzzer to go up by 13 and then continued to celebrate like they won some kind of championship. We had such a bad taste in our mouths, that the 4 Americans decided to skip out on the dinner we had agreed to go to with some of the other team's players. Again, I love how competitive we are :)

Practice, Practice, Practice...

Ok, we've won a couple of Italian league games, but not by much! We joke that we are an undefeated team and have set a record of consecutive victories, but we are not so overpowering that we are just blowing everyone out by 20 points. On the contrary, we basically aren't blowing ANYONE out--not even by 10 most of the time. We just know we are going to win, and seem to know how to finish a game in the end. But we can't continue to play like this because things are going to get tougher and tougher. The last games we have left are against the top teams in the league, almost all of them away. And we don't want to give any one of them any confidence that they can beat us in the play-offs, so we need to stay on top and be rolling when we enter into the long post-season.

I wish I could say that I've been playing at my best, but I haven't. In the last 3 out of 4 games, I've only played about 10 minutes, and I'm not sure whether the chicken (less playing time) or the egg (sub-par performances) came first... Therefore, I'm battling accepting my role as a team player, being frustrated about not getting what I may think I deserve, and fighting to improve on the things that I may be sitting down for. The best advice I've been getting recently is to just control what I can control, and that does not include the other team, the refs, our coach, or anyone else... just ME! Me, my attitude and my work ethic.

We have a game at one of the top teams this Sunday, and then we have the Italian Cup in Venice the following weekend.

End of Euroleague Chapter...

We lost.... They may have had better individual players, but I felt like we had a better team and could have won. It's a shame, but we are really concerned about how much time we will have now in between games. We will still be practicing twice a day almost every day, but without all the traveling in the middle of every other week, I feel like I'm going to have to take up a hobby or something! We'll see. This week and next week has been devoted to getting ourselves back in shape and back to the basics. We haven't even had time or enough days in between games to lift weights enough, so we are doing that a few times a week and our coaches ran the heck out of us today! I'm a bit sore again, but it's a good sore. I feel like I'm being productive :)

Our goal now is to win the Italian Cup, which is in a month. No surprises on who made it: the top four teams in the league. But, as the top-seed, we should have had "dibs" on hosting. Instead, the 4-seed, Venice is hosting, so we will have to beat the home team for the Semi-finals. I've compared us to the Yankees of the Women's Italian league before just because we really do have a "stacked" team, and a teammate has also compared us to the Lakers just because everybody seems to love to hate us. They don't want to see us continue to do well, and they think we get special treatment because of the name on our jerseys (which is actually hard to find amongst our sponsors...) That's fine, we'll just have to overcome. It almost makes us feel like we're the underdogs even though we still haven't lost a game in league play. Plus, Taranto lost the Italian Cup last year, but went on the win the championship. It would be nice to have a chance to win both!

Euroleague, round of 16!

I'm proud of our team for the way we are handling our first ever Euroleague experience, but we just came up a bit short playing in Istanbul two nights ago. We left at 5:15 in the morning a few days ago, arrived at around 3, practiced at about 8 p.m., then went to bed. Shoot-around practice was at 12, then we played at 7:30 in a gym that more resembled a high school gym instead of housing the strong Turkish team that it was. It was a shooters' gym however (meaning that on at least two of the sides of each basket was a wall, making vision of the rim much clearer on where to aim). We had the game in our hands. We could smell victory even though we were the underdogs. But then, they made a run, and we ended up losing by 6. The next morning we left at 3:45 in the morning, and I'd be surprised if half of us actually got any sleep... I certainly didn't...

Some of us blamed our coach for not changing how we played pick and rolls, some of us blamed the refs (which seemed valid since two of their players shot 23 free throws together and our whole team shot 9 FT for the night), and I was just frustrated mostly because I felt like I couldn't help out being on the bench most of the night. For whatever reason, I only played 10 minutes--my lowest of the season. I went 3/3 from the three point line, so it wasn't as if I couldn't score, but I hate just sitting there watching us lose. Maybe our coach thought that I would have trouble with my height because their two guards were both about 6' 1", but Penny Taylor had 28 points anyways, so I couldn't have done much worse, I hope. I don't blame anyone, but we still have a chance to take this series because we play here again tomorrow to try and force a game 3 back in Istanbul. I'll keep you guys updated :)

Wikipedia

I'm not sure what the exact standards of "big timing" are, but having your own Wikipedia article is pretty cool (No matter what language it's in...). http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_Gaynell_Montagnino

Almost any time I think about Wikipedia though, I'm reminded of the words of Michael Scott (from the show The Office, one of my few faves) on the subject: "Wikipedia is the best thing ever... Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you KNOW you are getting the best possible information." Love it. I know I didn't do it justice, so here's my source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFBDn5PiL00

Life's so crazy. I'm humbled every time something like this comes up. I'm not sure how God took this small, shy kid from Christian Life Academy who loved to play sports and turned that kid into a decently successful professional athlete, but He did. I mean, I know it happens because where else do pro athletes come from, but why me? I have to wonder sometimes, but I know that I'm also here because I've worked very hard to have the chance to do this over the past decade-plus. It's a daily battle to find that balance between having some "swagger" on the court and staying humble. It's something that we will probably never cease to search for.

A battle??? or just rugby?

We just played against one of those teams that it doesn't really matter how good you are at basketball, it's more about how tough you are (physically and mentally). The game got a bit rough at times, but this team is known for how chaotic, and oftentimes dirty, they play. They will get a few cheap shots in to try and bait you into a retaliation, and they will fake and flop on some plays to get some fouls called, all aimed at throwing you off your game and trying to get an advantage by compensating for what they seem to lack in talent. It was the first time that I've experienced a coach getting two technical fouls called to be thrown out of a game at the professional level, and luckily I was at the free throw line when that happened. If I hadn't gone 6 for 6 from the free throw line (4 of those thanks to the coach's "T's") I, unfortunately, would not have scored. I would have joined my other two American guards in that situation though, and only one of them was out sick. It was just a difficult game for the "little people"--we didn't get many shots off, but that opened up things for our post players, who really stepped up for us. This game set a record for consecutive victories at 14, and the next two teams below us already have 3 losses, so clinching the top seed for the play-offs should be all ours if we keep rolling.

I'll take this time to explain a little bit about what's going on. Some might find this boring, but I know that some are curious to how the European leagues function. Here ya go either way:

We are now taking a break from the Italian League as we head into the next round of what is called the "Italian Cup". Pretty much every country has their own "Cup" championship that is secondary the the end-of-the-season-play-offs championship. I thought it was silly, but the winner has a good chance of being apart of the Euroleague the next season, so I guess understand it's real motive now. We will play away and then at home against Parma, and the point differential will decide who moves on to the final four.

On the other hand, the next week will be the next round for Euroleague. A whole different ball game. We are matched up with a very good Turkish team that will be extremely difficult for us to beat. It will be a best-of a 3-game series, and since they are the higher-seeded team, we will play in Istanbul first, then at home, and the if-necessary game would be back in Istanbul. Unlike the Italian league, we are NOT the favorites, so that means we get to play like we have nothing to lose. I got no problem being the underdog :)

(Uncle Tommy left for Rome today, but this is a picture taken after our win against the Lithuanian team. That's my buddy Salvatore, or as we call him, Totes, who is now a buddy of Uncle Tommy's too!)

Mountains and Valleys

Basketball, which in so many ways is a microcosm of life, has its ups and downs. The downs in sports are most commonly referred to as "slumps". They happen. I've had a couple of them this season. For me, they are mostly shooting slumps, but sometimes they can just be mental fatigue when you are in a place that just doesn't have the passion or desire to go to practice or play with your absolute best effort that day. To be honest, I don't feel like writing when I'm currently in a "slump". I don't feel like it AND I know that that's not fun and interesting to read about. But this blog is about my experiences over here, and without publicly throwing out names and specific frustrations that I'm having, I'll just keep it at that I was frustrated with myself for not doing what I needed to with (what I considered) a small amount opportunities. I can never get mad and frustrated with a coach for not playing me more or at teammates for not passing the ball or something (Thanks for Coach Dallimore for reminding me that!). I can only control my attitude and how hard I work, and when those two things are where they need to be, most of the time everything falls into place.

Thankfully, my "slump" only lasted a couple of games, and the two games that my Uncle Tommy has been here to see have been good wins and good games for me! We have one more home game to play while he's here, and all has gone really well so far. I've showed him all around the city, and he's loved every bit of it. He's a great tourist buddy as well as a fine guest (he naps when I nap and even eats when I eat--pregame meals and all!). Tomorrow we are going on a little road trip to somewhere north of here because our coach actually gave us the day off tomorrow for playing well! Awesome. We'll see if we can extend the list of things Uncle Tommy has never eaten before in his life before this trip. It's pretty long already--including octopus, gnocchi, pasta with lobster, prosciutto and mozarella, red pesto pasta, tripe, and several other things that maybe share the same name, but are NOT the same as the American version (i.e. Tiramisu, italian sausage, risotto, eggplant lasagna, etc.)