Day 10: Big waves, bloody scrapes and a technical

René Rougeau

Thursday, July 3, 2008 | 3:59 p.m.

(Filed at 8:23 a.m. on Friday, July 4, Cairns time.)

Hello to everyone again, I’m sure you’ve been looking for an update on what’s been going on the past few days while we were in Brisbane.

I must admit, the team has been having a lot more fun here in Brisbane than we did in Sydney, but don’t tell anyone I said that.

Although the beds were small for me and my teammates, they were surprisingly very comfortable. The Hilton hotel where we stayed was located in the heart of downtown Brisbane, which was connected to a big strip mall. Hungry Jacks, McDonald’s, KFC and Oporto’s have been all the choices of our meals.

The second day in Brisbane was spent at the Gold Coast, which was about an hour from the city. The Gold Coast reminded me of the beaches back in America except that the waves were 10 times bigger!

I was telling my younger brother Sean about how crazy it was out there and that I wish he could have been here to experience this with me. He loves the water as much as I do, if not more.

Kendall Wallace, Scott Hoffman, Joe Darger and I all decided to get into the water and go boogie-boarding. It was the first time for Joe and Scotty, so they were in for quite a surprise! The waves were the most powerful I have ever dealt with in my life.

The beach that we were on had a sandbar, therefore the sand floor was higher than usual. We all came face to face with it thanks to the strong waves.

Each one of us hit the floor bottom pretty hard. Unfortunately, Scott hit the floor the hardest. I’m sorry Scott but even though you were in a lot of pain, it was hilarious! LOL.

Scott was so out of it when he came up from the water that I had to help him get to shore. His scrapes were bleeding somewhat but he appeared to be OK once he finally got to dry land.

He definitely will take some memories back to America with him from this Australia trip, no doubt about it.

Chris Maathuis wanted me and Kendall to go back out into the water so he could get some footage for the news back in Las Vegas but, to be honest with you, I didn’t want to get back in the water because of what happened to Mr. Hoffman. LOL.

Kendall insisted we go back out there. I did, but I was very nervous. I was glad that we made it through the day without encountering any sharks or other creatures that could have been lurking through the waters.

The two games we had in Brisbane appeared to be a piece of cake, seeing that we won our games pretty convincingly.

The first team was the Queensland All-Stars. They looked pretty tough, by their size and athleticism during pre-game warm-ups.

These guys were jumping out of the gym as if they were kangaroos themselves, I tell ya! We jumped out on them early and were able to hold our big lead the entire game.

Wink was unstoppable, leading the team with 24 points.

The next game, we played a semi-pro team, the South West Metro Pirates, that was supposedly the best in its league. But we did a good job of showing them how to play basketball.

Kendall played invincible that game. He had a career-high 20 points in the first half. McLovin’ nice! LOL. That’s Kendall’s nickname on the team, but it’s a long story.

Everyone played great that night. And, yes, even though he looks like he got into a big fight with the local Aussies, Scotty torched the team for 15 points himself.

He still can shoot the rock even when his face isn’t so pretty. We definitely enjoyed ourselves in Brisbane. It seemed like the town was a lot more sociable than Sydney.

The following morning we took off for our last city of the tour, known as Cairns. Aussies pronounce it like “cans.” This is a very humid place. It reminds us of some tropical place that you see on television all the time.

It’s July 2 and our final game of the tour is tonight, against the Cairns Marlins. Coach (Lon) Kruger tells us that this would probably be the best team we would plan on the trip, so we definitely have to be prepared.

Looking at the opponents before the game, they were pretty big and quick. The first half couldn’t have gone any worse for us. We made easy turnovers, couldn’t make shots, and, apparently, couldn’t play good defense for the refs called every little thing on us.

We couldn’t get a break at all and that was very frustrating, especially when you are trying to get back into the game. We were down by as much as 19 at one point in the first half, but I had a feeling we could make a comeback as long as we started playing our defense without fouling.

The second half we came out with something to prove. Everyone came out ready to play. In the third quarter, we cut the lead to single digits and by the time the fourth quarter came around it was Showtime.

We went on a 13-0 run to take the lead and everyone on the team was fired up. The fans were into the game and the opposing team was looking rather nervous as we went back and fourth.

The refs gave coach Kruger a technical foul for some odd reason, basically to try to help the other team win the game. In all my four years of playing for coach, I have never seen him receive a technical foul. Ever!

The funny thing is that he didn’t say anything that deserved the technical foul in the first place. Coach is always a cool and collected man who hardly ever loses his temper, so it was absurd to see him get that technical foul.

Anyways, after coach got the tech, that made us play even harder and we could feel the victory in our hands now. Everyone played hard and tough, and did a great job of fighting our way back into the game. A few mistakes down the line and some missed opportunities led to us losing the game in the end.

It’s always frustrating losing a game, but at least we were able to learn from our mistakes and definitely have a lot to look forward to the upcoming season.

We all have made great strides and know exactly what to work on in order for us to have an excellent season. Until tomorrow, I hope everyone has a good night or day, depending on what time you read this.