Season. Over.

We traveled to Konya (home of Rumi and the Whirling Dervishes) for game two. The crowd was great, a packed arena that made me feel like I was playing basketball again. Unfortunately we just weren't good enough to win the game. We played them tough, but we had some foul trouble and lost a key player to a sprained ankle midway through the first quarter. Ended up having to play two players who haven't played more than 5 minutes all season...combined.

With the loss means the end of the season. I got a call from management today, my flight is tomorrow afternoon. Flying through Frankfurt to Boston. Hopefully I can get out of Frankfurt, but I don't know with all this volcanic ash floating around.

So now it's the offseason. Going to Peru and Chile with Alisa on April 25th, so that will be really cool. Other than that, who knows.

Thanks for following along this shortened season, hope the blog was not a total waste of your time!

2nd round and parents visit

We lost game 1 of the second round on Saturday afternoon. It was a close game, we ended up losing 54-51. As the score indicates this game was as much WWF as it was basketball. We are leaving tomorrow to go to their gym in Konya. It's a 10 hour drive, but I've heard we're flying so that's nice. The second round is the same format as the first, a best of 3 series.

Also my mom and dad have made it out to Istanbul! They got cheap tickets less than 48 hours before the flight took off, so they jumped on it and flew out here. They're doing a Rick Steeves tour, but came out 4 days early to see me and watch my game.

Their tour didn't start until today, so we spent yesterday sightseeing. Walked around Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque and Taksim Square. It was a good day. Hopefully the weather holds while they are here.

Game 2 is on Wednesday. Depending on the outcome, game 3 on will be on Saturday or I'll have a whole lot of free time on my hands on Thursday.

Next round!

Wow, we won a crazy game in double OT. It was nerve-wracking. I fouled out in the fourth quarter so I had to watch from the sidelines. We came back from 4 down and a minute to go in both regulation and the first overtime. Then in the second overtime we were down 85-79 with 2:32 to go when we took a timeout. A three, a steal and a layup led to a timeout by the other team. We ended up getting a few more stops and buckets and going up 91-85. We ended up winning 92-86.

So now we're moving on to the second round. I have no idea who we play, when we play, or where we're playing. I do know it's another 3 game series. So we'll see what happens.

The photo above was taken immediately after our victory.

Still alive...

We won game 2 on the road by three points. I played a lot better this time.

The last game of the series is at home on Saturday. Quick turnaround, but I can't wait to play it. I want a conclusion to this round.

After the game we went to a restaurant that is in the Guinness Book of World Records. It is the home of the largest kebab meat...thing. The kebab meat..thing..what's the (proper name for it???) weighed 2,698 KG. That's almost three tons!!

While we were at the restaurant my seat was facing a giant plasma TV that was playing a 4-minute TV news report on loop. The report was about the giant kebab (of course) and it was....DISGUSTING. I almost lost my appetite it was so bad. I didn't know how they made those things before, and I didn't want to know. But it's almost impossible to avoid glancing at the TV when you're sitting there with nothing but your own thoughts because everybody is speaking Turkish. Suffice it to say that I ate much less than anybody else. The team manager was bummed because he thought I didn't like it. Actually the taste was pretty good, but I can't get the images of a dozen people slapping and kneading raw, unidentifiable meat into a giant mass of dead animal.

Anyway, so we got game 3 in a couple days.

That wasn't part of the plan...

Well we lost game 1 by three points. Everybody played poorly. Game 2 is at their place on Wednesday.

Saturday was an off-day, and it was gorgeous out. I took advantage and went to Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar again. Got some scarfs and some really cool black and white drawings of Istanbul. Great mementos.

This is a photo of Hagia Sophia.

Also, Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque (picture below with me and Alisa) are right across the plaza from each other. They literally face each other. It's pretty cool. Hagia Sophia used to be a church during Byzantine times, then it was converted to a mosque by the Ottomans. The Blue Mosque was built by Sultan Ahmed as a response to Hagia Sophia.

Won our last regular season game....

So we finished at 15-7 and secured 2nd place. We were tied with another team, but had the tiebreaker over them.

Tomorrow is game 1 of the first round of the playoffs. We are playing the 7th seed from the other conference. Don't know too much about them, should be a good game. It is a 3 game series.

Updates

Alisa's visit was awesome, it was great to not be alone all the time. Plus she brought me easter candy and a new pair of jeans!! New jeans for me is a once-every-other-year occurrence for me, so it was exciting for me. We had a great time, we were able to see a lot of things. Got to see Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque, and went to the Grand Bazaar a couple times too. The picture is in front of the Blue Mosque.

Going to the Grand Bazaar was great cause I don't like going alone. When I'm alone I'm an easy target for people to talk to me, or grab my coat to get my attention. But with someone I got bothered less. Plus, Alisa is a way better bargainer than me, so I saved some money too.

The only thing that sucked about Alisa's visit was the weather. Now that she is gone the weather forecast calls for a week of sun. There have been like, 3 non-rainy days while I've been in Istanbul.

After Alisa left we flew down to Izmir for our last regular season road game. We have one more home game, then playoffs. The coaches and management were nervous for the game cause we are battling for second place. The team we were playing was good, and they were really upset when they lost to us earlier in the season. Apparently their coach went nuts and yelled at our coach staff.

Anyway, the place was packed and the atmosphere was tense. The game started badly for us, a couple turnovers and a quick 7-0 run for them. Then I set a ballscreen, rolled to the hoop and caught a perfect bounce pass from a teammate. I jumped from the middle of the key and slammed it right on two of their players. I was clearly fouled, but whatever. Next play we came down, I got the ball on the wing, dribbled left toward the middle, spun baseline and threw in a 12 foot right hand hook. I went on my own personal 8-0 run and they called timeout.

The game was tight all the way. We were down 8 with about four minutes to go, but hit a couple threes and I dunked once to pull us even. With about 30 seconds to go we were up two, got the ball and hit a three in a scramble situation to put us up by five. There was no comeback after that, it totally deflated the other team. After the win we had to hurry cause our flight was in two hours. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but apparently we were about two hours...from the airport.

From the moment the game ended to the time we were showered, dressed and on the bus was no more than 6 minutes. We had given our bags to the team manager before the game, he left the game early to get our tickets and get our bags on the plane. This meant that, for all of us, our carry-ons were our sweaty basketball shoes and a plastic bag full of our still wet game gear. It was slightly embarrassing.

With the win we moved into a tie for second place. We hold the tiebreaker though, so we control our destiny. A win would get us 2nd, which is important for the playoffs. The club missed the playoffs last year, so the improvement is huge. Hopefully we will be able to do some damage in the playoffs.