On the road

Since my last post we've played and won five straight away games including trips to Hungary, France, and Poland. Great teams win on the road so we've been happy with how we've been playing and are looking to get even better. Although we've been road weary Nicole and I still try to make the best of our time in the countries we visit. In Hungary, our hotel was located next to the city's most recognized church. It was beautiful and reminded me a bit of Memorial Church at Stanford. It just so happened that the night we arrived a band was scheduled to play so Nicole and I were treated to a neat concert. In France, we met a Gospel Choir group (all one family) called The Singletons from Michigan who were on their European tour. They were kind enough to let us listen to them warm up before a performance and they were very talented. We definitely felt spiritual after listening. Look them up on Itunes! Poland was on the cold side (although not as cold as I'm hearing it is back home in Wyoming.) Our view from our hotel room was of a large body of water. Nicole said it was the ocean and I was smart enough to know that Poland's coast couldn't border and ocean so I said it was a lake. We were later educated that it was the Baltic Sea. :)

Those three games don't hail in comparison to our game against our biggest rival, Galatasaray. It's always a huge game when these teams play so we made our management and president very happy people. Instead of driving our president rented us water taxis to drive us to the game. Partly because of the importance of the game and partly because traffic was crazy during that time because of Bayram. It's a four day Muslim holiday where sheep are sacrificed to honor Allah. But it also means family are with each other which equals even more crowded roads.

Looking forward to a whole week in Istanbul. It will be nice to sleep in my own bed for a few nights at least. And I'm also excited for my short time back in the states for the holidays!

Updates from the Bul

As much as Istanbul's trying to keep it away, winter is slowly making its presence known here. Although I really can't complain because our "winters" don't include snow or freezing temperatures. But I now have to wear a coat and must stow away my flip flops for the season.:) I did get to see some snow, however, when we made a trip to Brno, Czech Republic for a euroleague game. It was pretty wet snow perfect for making snowballs. Nicole tried many times to hit me with one but I was much too fast for her. Our game didn't end up as planned as we lost by 8 points.

We've had better luck in the Turkish league with a 4-0 record so far. We avenged the President's cup loss to Mersin. Our record in Euroleague is 1-2 but hoping that will change as our two losses have been to the two toughest teams in our pool. If we can win against the rest of the teams and win by more the 8 points to Brno when we play them again we will be second in our pool which is what we want. But of course, one game at a time. Our next trip is to Hungary.

On a fun note, I saw a friend from my hometown who was visiting Istanbul and got to eat dinner with him and a couple of his friends. He was here as part of an architecture class and they have been traveling Europe looking and studying all of Europe's architecture. But it's always fun to see a familiar face and still baffles me to know how small the world really is to have two small town folk reunite in Istanbul.

And we're off!!

Well it was quite a long pre season (even though I joined the team a month after the Turks started practicing). But it was needed as I'm in shape, healthy, and game ready now. One fun preseason tourney took us to Prague. I had heard it's quite a city and it definitely was very beautiful with lots to see. Our Americans finally finished their WNBA season and joined us just before our first game. We have the same Americans as last year with the exception of Katie Smith. Penny Taylor replaced her who is an Australian and will help our team in different ways than Katie. Neither Penny nor Tammy really had a complete practice with us before we played in the Presidents Cup which is a rematch of the previous year's champs and runner up. We lost that game but we play again in a couple days so we're hoping for a different outcome this time around.

We've played one Turkish league game and one European league game this past week. Our first Turkish league game was a team from Turkey's capital. We started the game with an early 10 point lead and never looked back. We returned to Istanbul and had a couple days to prepare for our first Euroleague game against a strong team from Poland. We played great for the first 3 quarters and almost blew a 20 point lead in the 4th quarter but we held on to win that one as well. If you want to follow those games you can check them out at fibaeurope.com and click on the Euroleague women tab. Our next Euroleague game will be in Brno, Czech Republic on Tuesday. So we are back in the swing of things and there is no sign of things slowing down so I will try to update the blog more frequently since we will be playing two games a week from here on out.

Hope everyone has a very happy Halloween!

Back at it

Well, I'm back in Istanbul ready to start a brand new year. Basketball year....that is. I've been back for a few days and was thrown into two a days like I never left. I've been training long enough to know that this is the hardest part. Getting back in shape. My body is sore all over, I'm tired, and I have no energy. I have to keep going at it until that wears off and I'm back in shape ready to play again. I haven't done a lot since we ended our national team stint in Latvia which we placed 9th after a couple of hard losses to end the tournament for us. Hopefully next time we will have our full team of healthy players because Turkey definitely is capable of competing against the tougher countries.

When I say I haven't done a lot, I'm talking about basketball, because my summer was jam packed of travel, friends, and family. Not two weeks of being back in the states (one of those in Denver to see friends and teammates) my parents and I took a trip to Lucerne, Switzerland to watch Brett compete in World Cup. I haven't seen many more beautiful places than that. Brett took home the bronze. I flew back separately from my parents into Chicago to spend a week with former Stanford teammates. I got to see a little more of Chicago since last time I was there was New Year's and we obviously didn't spend too much time outside without freezing. It's a pretty cool city. From there my parents picked me up on their way to South Bend, Indiana. My mom's high school reunion created a sort of family reunion for all of us. I'm accustomed to seeing my mom's side of the family only once a year so it was a pleasant stay to see them for a week. We also took a day break and drove up to Michigan to see my cousin Aura get married.

I had been living out of a suitcase for three weeks so I was ready to sleep in my own bed once we got back to Riverton. It was short lived, however. I stayed long enough to see friends, Taryn and Garth, wed in the mountains above Dubois. Brett flew in to be a groomsman in that wedding with his girlfriend, Ashleigh. I took off two days later for Stanford. I have so many great friends, teammates, and adopted families that are around the area so I wanted to make sure I saw them before Turkey. I also spent four days in Phoenix during that time with another couple friends.

Summer is the only time I get back in the states these days, so I make sure to have enough fun and make enough memories to last me until the next summer! But now I'm back to reality and shifting gears as best I can. I'll post some pictures soon and keep everyone updated on the games coming up in a little over a month.

Sampiyon! (Champions)

It wasn't a 40 point blow out but we won our 3rd game to win the Turkish championships. And I just so happened to be celebrating my birthday as well so it was an extra special day for me! Our Americans took no time at all to get back to the states. They wanted to enjoy the little time they had before they started with their teams for the summer so they left the next day. The rest of the team presented our cup to our club's president as well as walking out on the field during halftime of our club's soccer match. I hadn't been to a "football" match yet so that was pretty cool to see.

I also left the next day on a little vacation of my own the next to Antalya which is in southern Turkey. It's very nice this time of year and I pampered myself for a few days before I had to come back to Istanbul to join the national team in camp. I've been with them for a few days and we just finished a scrimmage against Czech Republic. We won it and we will play them again tomorrow just to get more game time before heading to Latvia where we'll start games on June 7th.

Championship in sight!

Well, I've been pretty horrible about keeping this thing up to date. To my defense I had about 3 weeks straight of visitors. First my parents came to visit, just in time to see us win the Turkish Cup. It's a 3 day mini tournament right before the playoffs start. We beat Galatasaray in the finals of that tournament. We had the next day off so I stayed with my parents in Kayseri where the tournament was played and we toured Capadoccia which was one of the most unique places I have ever seen. I will post pictures very soon. It's a huge area with bunches of caves built underground and in the sides of mountains and hills. Worth the google visit if you have time to look it up. My parents also saw the first game of the semi finals, again against Galatasaray, and again a win.

The day they left, my old teammate, JJ Hones, from Stanford who is studying abroad in Madrid right now took a weekend visit to Istanbul. She saw the second game of the semi's against Gala, but we lost that one. We still had a lot of fun and she was able to see most of Istanbul as one can see in just a couple days. She left and just a few hours later, another teammate from Stanford, Cissy Pierce came to visit. She just ended her basketball season in Germany and had a few days before her return flight to the states. She saw our final game and win against Gala in order to move to the finals and also toured a little bit of Istanbul. I saw more of Istanbul in just a few day span than I have in the last 2 years!

After Cissy left, I had a couple days to recoup before we played our first game of the finals against Mersin and my old coach from last year. It's a best of 5 series and our first two games were at home. We swept this team during the regular season but they were both close games so we were expecting to play a tough game. However, we easily won our first two games by 25 points and 40 points respectively. Our team was just determined to win and make a statement. (We also have 4 wnba players who the earlier we win the more rest they get before their wnba seasons start, so they had extra motivation.) We play what we are hoping is our last game and the championship game this friday on my birthday in Mersin. Here's to hoping I get that birthday present!!

Home Stretch!

Two more games remain in the regular season of the Turkish League so playoffs are in site! Most of the time, players are run down and tired as it nears the end of the season, but when playoffs start it is another whole story. There is a sense of excitement as the playoffs are what we've worked hard for all year. If we can win these last two games, we will secure our 1st place in the league meaning all important home court advantage throughout the playoffs. We just played and beat my old coach's team yesterday. They are the 2nd place team so to have led the whole game and come away with a solid win is encouraging for our team even when we didn't play to our best potential. We did however, lose to Samsun, another top 3 team a couple weeks ago which means if we meet up with them in the playoffs, we will start the series at 1-1 as opposed to 1-0 if we had swept them. Just making it a little longer and tougher on ourselves but nothing we aren't capable of.

This time of year is just exciting in general because of tourney time in the states as well. I will try to watch as many games as I can during March Madness. Stanford won outright the Pac-10 championship for I don't even know how many years in a row now claiming Pac-10 player and coach of the year as well. Hoping they continue to dominate in the Pac-10 tourney and NCAA tournament.

I am also looking forward to the arrival of Seb, an old Stanford teammate of mine and Nicole's. She will be here for a couple weeks to visit. Then in a month my parents will be making a visit. Good times ahead!

Catching up

Sorry that I've been absent for about a month. Time flies when you're having fun right?;) Here are a few happenings in the last month.

In the round of 16 for the Euorleague playoffs, we matched up with a solid team from Poland. Each round is the best of 3 series and we had home court advantage so we hosted the first game. After being down 5 with just a couple minutes to go, we climbed back to force the game to overtime where we won it by a few points. The second game in Poland was close the entire way and we were leading with a couple minutes to go. But after a couple of bad turnovers we lost that game by 3 points. So that forced a 3rd game back in Istanbul where we won in none other than overtime! It was quite the exciting series to say the least. But our reward for advancing to the round of 8 was to match up with a Russian powerhouse team. This team will give Spartak (the all star Russian team we played earlier in the year) a definite run for their money. If you notice a trend of stacked teams from Russia then you are right on. They have big budgets and can therefore attract the best players. Anyways, we went to Ekaterinburg and lost by nearly 30 points. Personally, I had one of my best games of the year so it was a little bittersweet. We came back to Istanbul determined to give them a better game since we knew we were better than what we showed and did exactly that. We were winning by 17 points in the 3rd quarter before they started to show why they are one of the best teams in Europe. We let them back in the game and they took the lead late in the 4th quarter and our attempt at a 3 to force overtime failed. So now we are playing solely in the Turkish league for the rest of the year. Winning the Turkish Championship is our club's most important goal, so they brushed off the loss to the Russian team as long as we continue to win in the Turkish league.

Speaking of Turkish league.....we played our rival, Galatasaray before heading to Russia. This is one of the biggest rivalries in Europe for soccer so we get fans who might not care much about basketball but care about this rivalry so they were there in full force cheering for a win and throwing things on the court like they are expected to do. We expected it to be more of a game, but ended up beating them by nearly 30 points. When we play well like we did, there isn't any team in the league that can beat us. So our management was obviously pleased with the win.

The Galatasaray game was on Valentine's Day, so Nicole and I met up with some friends at a nice restaurant for dinner. It was a special meal for the holiday. We paid a flat rate and they kept serving us 4 or 5 courses of pasta, steak, salad, soup, dessert......and more dessert. And they gave us a gift as we left. It was a two headed shirt. So it's basically one shirt with two head holes for two valentine's to wear. On the shirt it said "Be my valentine." I thought it was pretty cute. We had a big table set up for more people to come but some bailed at the last minute so a couple of Turkish ladies sat with us at the end of our meal. We didn't speak Turkish and they didn't speak English but we seemed to have the best time. I'm not really sure how! Might have been the couple of cosmos we drank:)

Also, after a bit of Turkish drama that I will spare you the details of, our coach quit. But we got a new one the next day and after some adjustment on both parties' behalf we are fairly settled into a new system and new leadership.

That's it for now. I will try to update again sooner than a month from now!:)

P.S. Shoutout to my Cardinal racing to a first place finish in the pac-10!

P.S.S. the picture is of our 2 point loss to the Russian team at home and I've also added a few more pictures to the album "Turkey Round 2" in my pics link.

All-Stars

After winning our last Turkish league game of the first half of Turkish League the All-Star game was played in a city in Northern Turkey. It is Turkish all-stars vs. Americans or Foreigners. Last year I played on the Foreigner team, but after getting my passport this summer I was on the Turkish side. We hung in with the all powerful mighty Americans for most of the game but lost it by a few points in the end. It was mostly a game for entertainment so we hope we gave the fans something to be excited about. The city did a good job of putting together the other entertainment. We had a famous Turkish singer for the half time show. I felt out of place when all of my Turkish teammates joined in singing and I had no clue what she was saying.

After the short time to relax and have a fun game we were back to Turkish league and won our next two games. The last one was against my former team at my old gym. it was good to see some familiar faces on and off the court. We are starting playoffs for Euroleague this Tuesday. We will face a great team from Poland. It is a best of 3 series with the first game at home, the second game in Poland and if necessary the third game back in Istanbul.

On another note we got a new player after the break. Our team terminated the contract with our French player and added Katie Smith. She is a veteran in the WNBA, olympic gold medalist, WNBA champion and MVP. Needless to say we think we got a pretty good player. I am excited to play with her the rest of the season.

Awesome Vacation

We lost our last 2 games before we went home for Christmas but I quickly forgot about those on my plane ride back to the states to enjoy a nice 11 day break. And it was as good as it could be. I flew into Chicago where my dad was waiting for me to drive to South Bend, Indiana. My entire mom's side of the family made it in from all over the country to be together for a few days at Christmas. This is pretty rare as there about 30 of us. It was great to relax and catch up with relatives I haven't seen for a while. The only downer was I was battling back from being quite sick before I left Istanbul. And as a X-mas present I think i passed it along to my dad. The weather was also freezing the entire time. My grandparents have said the ice storm that hit after Christmas was the worst they've seen in 40 years. Cars literally couldn't get out of neighborhoods because of the ice on the roads. Luckily we escaped without any incidents.

After the 28th, I met up with my Stanford teammate, Clare, in Chicago where I spent the next five days until returning to Turkey. I saw about 7 friends from Stanford. I couldn't have had a better holiday, I just wish it could have been longer. Lots of great memories from this holiday but now I'm back to reality in Istanbul getting ready to play our last game of the first half of the season against Cankaya.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. Hope 2009 is a great one!