Practice

Some photos from tonight's practice at OU's Lloyd Noble Center:

 Kevin White and Mark Robertson go through some defensive slides at the beginning of practice.

 Some of OU's tournament banners (conference, national, etc.)

 Stacey King and Mookie Blaylock's retired numbers

Hillary Haley has been on a kick of wanting me to take photos of him, so here's one of him doing "post moves" - ummm, Pop, isn't that just you dunking so I get a pic of you showing off? :-)

Rough travel day

In case you were ever wondering, this is what it looks like outside of the Hytche at 2:30 a.m.  You know, if there's just some odd reason you ever wanted to know.

Yeah, that's right, the itinerary said to arrive at the Hytche at 2:30 a.m. for a 3 a.m. departure to the airport this morning.  As everyone arrived, you could almost tell who had decided to just stay up all night and who went to sleep for a few hours.  Half were saying "good morning" and others were like, okay, it's time for me to go to bed.  Either way, everyone was half asleep.  I usually would have gone to bed but I figured if I went to bed at 10 p.m. I would either A: have a hard time sleeping or B: fall immediately asleep and have an impossible time waking up at 1:45. 

Once we arrived at BWI, I was simply amazed at how many people were at the airport.  We lucked out and got there just in time because after I checked in, the check-in line was literally out of the door.  There had to be at least 200 in line.  There was more in line than there was for security - I've never seen that before.

And what better way to continue a travel day than to have plane issues?  We boarded our flight to Kansas City (which then was to connect to Oklahoma) and then found out that one piece of their communication equipment wasn't working (who needs that? ;-) )  so a technician had to come on board and first address what the issue was.  Once he figured it out (apparently we needed a new piece?) then he had to replace it.  Essentially, we were on the plane for over an hour and a half before the plane actually moved.

 Hillary Haley was conked out before our plane trouble was even figured out!

And to make things better, since we were delayed at BWI, we caused our flight from Kansas City to Oklahoma City to be delayed.  (Didn't we have this same issue last year?!)  And even more, this is the flight that I had an "A" boarding pass for!  So much for that, I was definitely center seat :-/

Statue/garden area outside of Oklahoma City's Will Rogers Airport

Apparently the OU football team, fresh off of a Fiesta Bowl title, arrived at the airport shortly after we did.  The only difference?  They arrived via charter plane and never even stepped foot in the airport. 

Injuries

After this last road trip, I feel the need to talk about some of our injuries.  Unfortunately, senior Josh Bright sprained his right ankle during the game at Colorado and I couldn't feel worse for him.  I cannot imagine how much pain he is after a LOOOOOONG travel day yesterday (Denver to Chicago to Baltimore then bus to Princess Anne - 12+ hours).  Josh is such a trooper however and always in such high spirits.  I don't know many details of the injury, but I'm hoping Josh can make a speedy recovery and misses minimal time in his last season as a Hawk.

Luckily we've only had two other players effected by the injury bug - junior Diyaaldin Kelley and freshman Kevin Williams.  I'm also not sure how long either will be out, but hoping it's not long!

Unfortunately, I've personally experienced the injury bug as I missed my senior year of high school basketball due to an ankle sprain/messed up ankle bones. This is still an extremely sensitive subject for me (and it was almost eight years ago!!!).  I really wouldn't wish any kind of injury on my worst enemy and really feel for our guys.

Look who's in Colorado!

Baseball seniors Elliott Alston and Nick Wiggins both hail from Littleton, Colo. and are home on break, so they decided to come to our game and support their fellow UMES student-athletes.  It was great to see them and I think it was neat for them to see UMES all the way out in Colorado. 

I asked them both how they were enjoying break and what they were doing and got a similar response from both - "sleep until noon-ish, workout for a few hours, play videogames."  Well, at least they're working out.  :-)

Elliott joins Bret on-air during the halftime show - he did a great job!

GAME DAY! UMES @ Colorado - Starters

UMES - Maroon uniform
3 White
11 Burns
23 Bradshaw
24 Haley
32 Hines

Colorado - Gray uniform
1 Tomlinson
5 Relphorde
10 Burks
11 Higgins
33 Dufault

More Colorado photos

Some more photos from our trip to Colorado.  I absolutely love this state and the beauty of it.  I've always said that I want to live there some day.  Below are some photos of CU's campus... all beautiful.  The buildings all have similar architecture and I would love to see campus buried in snow or in the glory of a sunny summer day.

During last night's practice, Bret and I ventured out to stock up on water and Powerade for the team.  Usually Coach Peery and/or Coach Robinson take on this task, but with a long flight and limited time, we decided to go and give them a break.  You'd never think how much liquids it takes to keep 13 basketball players and six staff members hydrated!  We pretty much cleared them out of Powerade (80 bottles).  Just think what it takes for a road trip that is longer than two days and includes more than one game!

 

 My cart was full of water - five cases to be exact. 

Photos - Coors Events Center

 Chauncey's Kids Roundup - The Buffs are very proud of alum Chauncey Billups (current Nuggets guard).  His brother, Rodney, is the Director of Basketball Operations with CU.

These last three photos are images of the new basketball and volleyball practice facility that is currently under construction.  Apparently the construction of this new facility (which I'm told will be amazing) has caused some problems for CU - all entrances to the arena are closed except one and all the heat and hot water has been shut off!  Luckily it wasn't too cold in the arena, but I was told that all the athletes cannot shower there as there is only cold water.  I think it'll all be worth it in the end however!