British Basketball "GAME ON"

London this time of year is very nice.......... so far. Sunny and clear, nice fall weather, the opposite of what we had in the Dominican Republic (hot and humid). We are staying about 30 minutes from downtown London in a nice old hotel that looks like what you would picture a country hotel would look like. Big brick structure outside, cozy lobby complete with big fireplace and rustic furniture inside. The first day while waiting in the lobby I got the opportunity to observe a classic afternoon tea time shared by a group of older couples. Just relaxing, drinking tea and having great conversation.

We are practicing at a private High School about 10 minutes away. Nice gym, good floor and space to practice. It's similar to many High Schools in the US. After day one we threw alot at the team. We have to play our first friendly game in only four days. We are a young team that will be tested early. We will be working a lot on our defense as that is something we will hang our hat night in and night out. We have 5 games to help prepare us for group play. we will play Canada, Finland, Belgium, Israel and Holland. then we go into group play. In group play we will play 4 teams, 2 times (home and away). The other teams in our group are Hungry, Ukraine, Macedonia and Bosnia. we must finish top 2 in our group to qualify to move on next summer, 1 step closer to the Olympics!

Learned that the best was to get over jet lag is to not sleep the first day. The time change will really get you if you give in and take a nap that first day. I left Dallas at 5pm and arrived in London at 8:30am. I have trouble sleeping on a plane so I only got maybe 2 hours of sleep. I forced myself to stay awake until 10:30pm and got a great night sleep and felt rested today.