I could write a 2 page paper on each topic I talk about but I’m going to try to keep it brief.
We took a bus to Charlotte at around 7:30 AM on Saturday morning. We were scheduled to fly out of Charlotte into Chicago and then take a bus down to South Bend, Indiana for our game against Notre Dame. We made it to South bend around 3 or so. We headed over to Notre Dame’s arena for practice at 5:30. We got to the arena and started making our way through a tunnel to the empty arena floor when we got stopped by an arena employee. Apparently Coach Brey had decided that we were not going to be allowed to use the main court for practice despite being scheduled to use it. We had a pretty good practice in their practice gym.
At 10:30 we had a meeting in Coach Jackson’s room. We were going to go over their offense and their personnel with a scouting video one of our coaches made. Bryson Barnes and I left the room at about 10:23, took the elevator downstairs and met up with another teammate at the bottom of the elevator. We went into a room labeled Furman Basketball right outside the elevator but it was clear that this wasn’t the room we were meeting in so we walked down the hall and found the right room. The next couple of minute went a little like this:
- Coach Jackson: Are you guys serious?
- Coach Price: (points to the clock that reads 10:33) What the crap guys?
- Coach Jackson: Are you kidding me? What could be more important than being in my room on time?
- Me: Well, we were in the room labeled Furman Basketball-
- Coach Jackson: I don’t care where you were… Bryson Are you SERIOUS?
- Bryson: Uh, we were in the other room.
- Coach Jackson: Guess What? We’re just messing with you guys.
- Entire room: Hysterical Laughter
So now I know what it feels like to be on Punk’d.
Sunday morning we woke up and had our shootaround at 8:45 am and this time we got to use the main floor. We came back had pregame meal and headed over to the gym at 12:30. The place filled up and I think I heard there were 10,000+ in attendance. We started off pretty well and were tied with 12 minutes to go in the first half if I’m mistaken. Kyle McAlarney was everything we expected and more. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think he is a better shooter than Stephen Curry. Curry is a better scorer by far but McAlarney is a better shooter. They went on a run going into halftime and we never did recover.
The trip home was absolutely ridiculous. We drove to Chicago after the game on Sunday so we wouldn’t have to make the drive in the morning. We woke up at 6:45 and were in the lobby eating breakfast in time to catch the sports highlights on the local news. Our fingers were crossed that ND/Furman highlights wouldn’t be following the NFL highlights but sure enough they showed like 6 of McAlarney’s threes.
We got the airport at 7:45, checked in, made it through security, and got to our gate for our 9:00 am flight. Our flight got delayed to 9:20. Then 9:45. Then 10:15. Then cancelled. We were travelling with 20+ people so the best thing they could do was send us to Atlanta. We were supposed to fly to Atlanta at 12:00. Delayed to 1:00. Then 1:15. Then 1:25. We ended up leaving Chicago at 2:00 when everything was said and done. We landed in Atlanta at 5:00 (after the time change) to find that one of our coaches bags was misplaced. My bag must have been left out in the snow while we were in Chicago because everything in my bag was dripping wet. It took our busdriver like 45 minutes to find us once we got our luggage in Atlanta. (I don’t really blame him though. He had a long day. Drove to Charlotte, then to Atlanta, then to Greenville.)
Then we made the drive to Greeville stopping only at the Mall of Georgia for a quick dinner. I got back to my dorm room at 9:30. As a general rule, a trip is too long for me when I can read an entire 370 page book before I get to my destination.
We’re practicing tonight to prepare for our home game against Appalachian State on Wednesday.
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