Well it has been a crazy few days for the team but we are finally here in Shuangyashan, the host of our first 2 games in the 2011 Continental Basketball Club Championships.
Most of the group flew out from Cairns at 10am on Sunday the 21st of August for a 2 hour flight to Brisbane. From Brisbane we flew to Hong Kong for a 10 hour stop over where veteran leader Dusty Rychart took a few of the boys out to experience all that Hong Kong has to offer. An early 5am wake up and off to Beijing and then onto Jiamusi a city about an hour from our final destination.
A very hectic travel schedule made a little more difficult by engine troubles flying out of Beijing. There were a few nervous looks from everyone when our pilot cancelled his taxi just prior to take off and returned to the terminal to get the engine fixed. After an hour of sitting in the plane and waiting we finally got off the ground and made it...lucky the plane had 2 engines.
After a police escort to our 5 star hotel (the best in the city easily), a good sleep and amazing breakfast we headed off to practice at the venue. Again another police escort allowed us to run every red light in the city and go down numerous one way streets the wrong way. On arrival there to greet the team were 2 massive pictures of Ian Crosswhite and Aaron Grabau starring us down from atop the stadium. Self proclaimed team photographers Billy Comino and Matty Adekponya were quick to get a picture of the real Bo in front of his 2 storey likeness.
After a solid 90mins of shooting and running the new guys through some plays, we were ready for our first game against Chinese powerhouse, Xinjiang Guanghui. Tomorrow we will play American side the Kentucky Bison’s who have NBA superstars Paul Pierce and Michael Beasley playing for them. Many of the guys took the opportunity to meet Pierce at lunch and are genuinely excited about competing against an NBA superstar of his calibre.
A full house of 5000 locals packed out the non-air conditioned stadium to witness the opening ceremony and our 1st game of the championship. The lads were switched on early and through dogged defense we jumped out to a solid 12 point lead at the first break (22 to 10). The 2nd quarter was again typical Taipans style basketball with our defensive pressure building throughout the quarter and providing many transition scoring opportunities as we won the quarter 28 to 9. The 50 to 19 score line essentially ended the game as a contest and had many of the locals heading towards the exits at half time. To their credit however Xinjiang never gave up and showed tremendous pride in the 2nd half to bring the score back to a respectable 79 to 66 Taipans win.
Coach Fearne was able to rotate through all players, with no player being on court for more than 25 minutes, allowing for the energy and intensity levels to stay high throughout the game. Another positive for the group was the solid contribution of all 11 players with 4 players scoring in double figures; Aaron Grabau 12, Shaun Gleeson 12, Dusty Rychart 12 and Brad Hill with 10. A great win where the group learnt much from the experience, mainly to never use public toilets in China. Matty Adekponya also learnt why we have a Police escort everywhere when a crying crazed female fan tried to jump onto the bus to play with his hair, it was nice guy Adekponya to the rescue making sure the police let the fan go free.
Currently the boys are in recovery mode from the recent travel and tonight’s game; all players are having their post game ice baths and hydrating. Tomorrow’s schedule will see us again practice at 11am (1pm Cairns time) and again play at 7pm (9pm) this time our opponent will be NBA stars Paul Pierce, Michael Beasley and the Kentucky Bison’s. So stay tuned for our next China Experience Blog.
