Early Start to Gameday
On gameday my day usually starts around noon or one with my pre-game meal. Yesterday was a little different I had to be in Brussels at 10 a.m. for a meeting with the Belgian Basketball Federation over the incident that happened in the St. Jan game (see blog entry mistake). In the meeting were our team president, our lawyer, myself and both referees from the game with 2 members of the federation. The referees started first telling their side of the story. I have never been in one of these meetings so i didn’t know what to expect but i assumed that the referees would exaggerate the story to a ridiculous level but that was not the case at all. They were honest and told exactly what happened and didn’t come in with a negative attitude towards the incident. So when it was my time to tell the story it was almost word for word what the refs had said only they said it in Flemish. 30 mins passed after both sides told the same story and it was time for a decision to be made. We were asked to leave the room and 5 mins later the committee made their decision the ruling goes as follows: I will miss the games between December 16th to January 15th. I am on basketball probation till 2010 in case any incident happens like this again (and it won’t, i had to promise my mother and wife).
After all that I still had a game to play. The game was a rivalry vs Hasselt which is the only team in our division that shares the same province (state) as us. Their point guard played in Bree last year and their power forward played in Bree 3 years ago and their small forward played with me my first year in Belgium. To say we are familiar with each other is an understatement. Hasselt came into the game in first place and to make matters worse our coach was suspened for the game. They started off well and we were down 16-6 in the first 5 mins but we cut the lead to 3 at the end of the first quarter and we were up by 10 at halftime (46-36). Our defense was better in the second half and we blew the game open winning 93-73, winning the first game of the “Battle of Limburg”. I finished the game with 15 points 4 rebounds and 6 assists and my mom is happy with the no turnovers……