First Regular Season Game

Buenos Dias,

It is Monday morning which means that it is our day off, so I figured I should get caught up with the blog. We had our first regular season game yesterday in Seville against Cajasol. Seville is located in the southwest corner of Spain about a 5 hour drive from Murcia. They are a team that made the playoffs last year, but have a few younger guys playing this year. They are still expected to be a quality team in our league, which is promising for us as we beat them 93-77.  It was a great way to start the season by getting a road win, which is never easy to do in this league. I started and played around 26 minutes sitting most of the fourth quarter as we had the game in hand. I played a well all around game and finished with a team high 18 points and even took a charge right before I was taken out at the end (think i took around 3 or 4 in my whole college career…Coach Speraw would be proud).

Getting the win made the 6 and a half hour bus ride home a lot more enjoyable. The bus ride was longer due to the storms we experienced a few days ago here in Spain. I am told it was the worst rain storm in 40 years! The rain caused severe flooding and even took out a bridge that we needed to take from Murcia to Seville. The pictures on the news were pretty devestating as cars were floating down roads that had been turned into rivers. I was told there were deaths from the storm, so we wore black bands on our uniforms yesterday to honor the victims. They don’t have drainage systems like we have back in the States so that is why one bad rain storm caused so much damage. It was a bad storm but nothing crazy compared to what we see every month back in Iowa. Pretty amazing that it only rains about ten times a year here and already we’ve seen the worst rain storm in four decades.  The rain and wind even caused this big canopy that covered our back yard to break in half and collapse, so we don’t have much of a backyard for the time being.

This afternoon Erin and I are heading to the beach with a few other teammates and their wives/girlfriends.  It is a nice and clear day here today so it should be relaxing at the beach. It is great having her here going on this journey together. She seems to be really enjoying it and gets a long real well with the other girls. She is cooking a lot which is a great thing for me. Coming home after a game or practice to a home cooked meal is a nice feeling! Happy she is here.

Big win on Saturday for the Hawks. I wasn’t able to watch any of the game but followed on the tracker. I am happy they were able to bounce back and get a win after last week. Anything can happen in the league! I stayed up late last night when I got home to watch the Ryder Cup. It was pretty painful to watch the Americans collapse the way they did. But the Europeans hit all the clutch shots and putts at the right time to sway it in their favor. My dad was there with some of his buddies for the weekend and one of them is from Europe, so I am sure they had fun listening to him gloat in his strong english accent. I am told they even caught one of the champagne corks from the bottles the Europeans were popping after they won (not sure if they were serious though?).

Excited we were able to get off to a good start to the season and hope we can continue it next Sunday at home against Valencia, who is one of the top teams in the league. Some of the games are streamed on ACB.com but i am not sure if next weeks is or not. Hope all is well back in the states and Iowa. Not gonna lie I miss seeing corn and bean fields, but I guess the Spanish mountains will have to do for now. Take care!

Matt