Feb 3, 2008

Hot streak continues!

Hello Everyone,

The week started off with a PR visit to an elementary school. We took tickets that allowed the students and their parents to get into the game Wednesday for free. The papers were signed by different players. Greg’s autograph was a major attention getter. It almost started a fight between two kids because one did not have Greg’s. We quickly squashed that by giving him a paper with Greg’s. We were also fighting off some young girls who loved to show there skills of speaking English. I was yelled at by one of them because she kept speaking Swedish and I said I don’t understand, she then screamed “DON”T YOU SPEAK SWEDISH?” I kindly told her no and then she spoke very good English to me (It was quite comical). They followed us all the way back to the cars before running back into the playground. I really do not understand the school system here. It seems like they are never in school, and they just had kids running all around outside with no teachers around. Maybe the kids our just better mannered here (I doubt it).

I’m not exactly sure who came up with the jokes like “you know you are Blank, when Blank.) , but I was inspired to come up with a list of my own when an event happened in practice, so here goes my top five list of “you know you are in Europe when Blank”.

You know you are in Europe when you warm-up playing Soccer before basketball practice.” (I scored 2 goals, I impressed them).
You know you are in Europe when they have more CafĂ©’s then McDonalds.
You know you are in Europe when the police sirens sound like alarm clocks.
You know you are in Europe when you can find a soccer game on TV 24/7.
You know you are in Europe when 10yr olds are smoking and 17yr old are in the club.
Honorable mention: You know you are in Europe when there are 7 different languages being spoken at the dinner table.

I also could not help but notice that my picture is still up on the Butler sports page and The Frankfort times, and I also have been informed that my ad for the Farmers bank is still running. Witch it really makes me wonder why I have not been contacted for some modeling shoots or more commercials. I’m sure they just have not been able to find my number. There is my attempt at humor. I know I will not be taking my act on the road anytime soon.

The all-star game was like any other all-star game, pretty boring. I was wrong about my teammate not making the team. He was on it and actually scored 32 points (8-13 from 3). He should have been the MVP, but the Swedish team lost to The WORLD team 105-101. We also had a teammate in the 3 point contest and he reached the final. He scored 17 on the final run and the American shooter scored 21. There was a snow storm on the way to the game so it took a little longer to get into Stockholm for the game. We did not get as much snow as the Midwest has been getting.

I also visited my first IKEA when a teammate needed curtains and must say I have no idea how people find anything in that store. It took us about 20 minutes just to find out where the curtains were. It is massive 3 stories with displays everywhere. The only IKEA I know in the states is in Chicago. It is a Swedish company and they have a pretty smart layout in the store. Once you are inside there is no turning back. You take an escalator to the third floor and must go through the entire store to exit. It is a very smart strategy and I’m sure it has contributed to extra sales (I bought candles). The prices were very reasonable as well (maybe I will work on a commercial with them).

Team

We have continued are hot streak winning on Wednesday. We have now won 5 out of 6 with the only loss coming to the team tied for first by 3. We are still in fifth place with only a couple games separating 1st-6th place. We have two games this week to wrap up the second round of games. After these games we will have played all 11 teams twice. They then have a system on who travels to where in the third round, and we will play everyone again.

Ă–resundskraft was a spot behind us when we played them, but now have fallen to 7th. The game was never really close. We took a 9 point lead into half and in the 3rd built it to around 20. Once again we had very balanced scoring with 4 players in double figures and one with 9. We also had a very solid defensive game holding them to 60 points.
Personally, I played 18 minutes and was 4-7 with 10 points. I also added 4 boards and 2 steals, and a block.

On Tuesday we play Akropool who is a team at the bottom. They have the high scorer in the league in Gerald Riley. It will be a big assignment for me has I try to hold him way below his average of 29 pts. His agent is actually one of the partners with my agent and will be at the game to meet me and also check on Gerald. It is a big game in many ways and hopefully I can rise to the challenge.

Butler will also have a huge road test coming up with 3 straight on the road. Valparaiso will be a huge game as it is being nationally televised on ESPN 2.

I would like to send out a special THANK YOU to Mrs. Petty for the card and picture!!

This is BC gone for now

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brandon,

good to hear you're playing well and your team continues to win and make a run for the playoffs.

enjoy your week.

Big AL

Anonymous said...

Brandon

Heard your interview on BU Beat today. I'm glad you're doing well. Because of your hard work and unselfish team play at Butler it seems like you are still a part of this team and share in this year's success.

Continued good luck with your pro career.

Anonymous said...

Brandon,

great interview on bubeat.com

you had 4 awesome years as a butler bulldog.

Big AL