July 7, 2013
Alex Kirk’s Blog on Days 3 and 4 (Editor’s Note: Alex sent this prior to this morning’s 140-46 win over the United Arab Emirates
Previous Blogs:
From Russia With Love: Coming from Kazan
From Russia With Love: Exhibition Thoughts
Sorry it had been a jam packed couple of days with crazy amounts of excitement. But lets start with the tough part of day three. We scrimmaged the Russians in their house with their rules. It was an extremely tough game still learning the rules and the offense and defense. We had lots of turnovers in the first and that lit the flame for the sharp shooters. They had the 19th pick in the draft playing for them and the kid is the real deal. One of the best shooters I think I have ever played against.
The first half we struggled and never were able to get anything going because of turnovers and our 20 plus fouls. But there were many bright spots in the second half as we played them even the whole half. I will not reveal the score but we got St. Louis smacked and I think most Lobo fans will understand that (Ed: although Coach McKillop was not ejected). I think it was a great eye opening experience for us and with all the cards stacked up against us including fatigue and jet lag, we grew closer as a team.
After practice the next morning and learning a lot about each other as a team I think we fixed a few areas that will be huge for tonight’s game.
Last night was one of the greatest experiences of my whole life at the opening ceremony. We stood in a parking lot waiting our turn to enter the massive complex, that they made for the 2018 World Cup, for about three hours. We took pictures with many other USA teams along with many other country teams. As the time went on we weren’t sure if the wait would be worth it in the end, but it definitely was!! We walked into the building filled to the top with around 50,000 people and every single athlete got the chills. It was also cool that our flag bearer was our shooter Luke Hancock from Louisville.
What was even better was when the Russians walked in behind us and the noise level would even rival The Pit on a good night.
Today we are just chilling and resting up for tonight as we open the games up with the United Arab Emarites. We are all really excited to officially represent the USA and play an official game after the preparation we all put in the last 12 days. Cam is playing right now and I have been watching highlights in the player lounge, of course in Russian (Cam led Australia to a 85-57 win over the Czech Republic with a double-double).
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter for more updates on how it’s going here in Kazan @kingkirk53
Thanks,
AK ____________________________________