What It’s Like to Play Basketball Overseas
A day in the life of an American playing abroad — March 2017
March Madness time! Over here and at home. Always exciting with something to look forward to at home. Especially the Big Dance! I’ve always loved it, especially in school when you can keep track of games during the day. Right now it’s great because over here you have a lot of the same schedule, same practice times same teams, and you’re crushing all your stuff on Netflix so something new is gladly welcomed! My first bracket I filled out was done strictly off gut instinct, no analysis just lookin at the game and picking. My Final 4 picks ended up Duke, Notre Dame, Kansas, UNC, with DUKE beating Kansas for the National Championship. One thing that does go into it though is I always pick my national champ from the hottest team from the best conference I think that has a lot to do with it. I took UCONN back in 2011 when “Kardiac” Kemba Walker took over the world. That was back when the Big East was the Big East. I think the ACC is the best conference in the land now and Duke’s conference Tournament run was impressive. Harry Giles had his struggles but what I like about him is he doesn’t seem like a pre-madonna he loves the Duke and college atmosphere and is playing hard. Really really really like Frank Jackson and Jason Tatum. Luke Kennard is probably the best scorer on the team and anybody that puts up like 4000 points in HS is good in my book. Love him or hate him, Grayson Allen has been there before and he plays hard every second of every minute of every game and doesn’t really care whether you like it or not, and I love that. They don’t always have the greatest tourney success but I think they can make another run. Hot take right you heard it here first.
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Okay so more about life over here. I touched on Netflix quickly, but that’s really a big part of your life here! There’s so much downtime and you need some entertainment and some shows to keep you busy. I just ran through Bates Motel in about 2 weeks and that was pacing myself lol. It can get a lot though. You have to break it up and keep your mind sharp too or else you get lazy. Netflix and Facetime are vital, but you have to switch it up or you’ll go mad. Don’t rely on it because it’s easy. Stretch, read some books, go for walks, practice the language. I practice Portuguese for a half hour to an hour a day and it’s starting to become a lot of fun and helpful honestly.
One thing I forgot to mention from last month because it’s kind of the end of the month celebration is Carnaval Ovar. It’s held in the city where I live and play for, and it’s the biggest celebration in the country. It’s kind of a mix between Mardi Gras, Halloween and St. Patrick’s day. Which probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense lol. It’s really a big celebration. Costumes and parades and groups and a lot of drinking. It’s one of those really cool experiences you wouldn’t get at home and it’s a big deal for such a small city.
So these two pictures above, my teammates rented this space on top of a castle, yes, a castle lol, that overlooks a small area that had a DJ for a huge dance party area. It was perfect for me because we were right in the center of everything but without the crowd and people bumping you ha, kind of like our own VIP area. So the big thing for Carnaval is wearing crazy costumes. I wasn’t really well prepared but being from Pittsburgh you better believe I have my Steelers jersey with me and I figured it was pretty unique for over here. So being a Yinzer at heart I wore a LeVeon Bell for like 3 straight days lol. It was really nice to have this release from hoops and was a lot of fun, something I’ll never forget.
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Got some very exciting news yesterday, I was selected to play in the All Star game for the league here in Portugal. It’s really cool and hopefully a really fun experience and something that can help me out. I’ve been really focused this season and really trying to lock in every day and not take anything for granted. So it’s pretty cool to get some validation that I’m on the right path. I still have some games left and the playoffs to handle business though so I need to keep that same mindset, but this will be a cool break from the league schedule to hopefully have some fun. This is going to be my first All Star appearance as a pro so I’m just going to leave it out there, enjoy the experience, and try and make a few flashy plays of course lol.
That’s about all the news for this month! My dad arrives for visit #2 on the 31st so that’s going to be great and he will get to attend the All Star game so that will be really cool for us. I’ll let you know how it went when I check in next month!!
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