Spring Break Pictures

The best college basketball player in the country, Kevin Durant, at Big XII Tourney in OK City.


Flooding in Brownsville, Texas.


More flooding


Bridge from mainland to South Padre Island.


Arizona's best players, Chase Buddinger and Marcus Williams, against Purdue.


Joakim Noah jumping against Jackson State.


Brandon, Dave, and I at a Cajun food resturant on Bourbon Street.

Spring Break wrap up and other good stuff

After the Big XII Tourney, we went to South Padre Island, Texas. Our hotel was on the mainland in Brownsville. We drove in rain most of the way from Austin to Brownsville. So we took the exit to our hotel and we found ourselves in a flood. The water was going over the hood of the car and we could feel the water hit below our feet. It was craziness! We had to park our car a block away from our hotel and wade the rest of the way to the hotel. Finally, the rain slowed down and we could get our car to the hotel. That was a fun little adventure. South Padre ended up being pretty cool. In retrospect, we should have forked over the extra money and stayed on the mainland because we would have met a lot more people and had an overall better experience. Oh well though. We learned for next time.

The Thursday of Spring Break we drove all the way to New Orleans from Brownsville. It was a long drive, but we made it. Nothing much happened that night other than walking Bourbon Street for the first time. I did not think that Bourbon Steet was anything special. It reminded me some of Amsterdam's red light district. It just isn't a very moral place. Anyway, I have experienced it and, like Amsterdam, I am in no hurry to return. New Orleans was fun though because of the NCAA tourney and I got to see my friend, Brandon, who drove down from Alabama.

The tourney was a great experience. We had upper level seats for all the sessions, but there were empty seats below. So at halftime of the first game of each session, we would move down to the the first or second row behind the benches because the ushers quit checking tickets at that point. We saw some good teams: Florida, Memphis (who Dave and I were unimpressed with), Creighton, Nevada, Purdue, and Arizona. We were kind of disappointed because the only really good game was the Nevada/Creighton game and our team, Creighton, ended up losing. We still had a great time seeing big time teams as well as maybe the repeat National Champions. During the Florida/Jackson State first round game, Dave was having some fun yelling at some of the Florida players as well as the coach, Billy Donovan. Dave was jokingly criticizing Donovan loudly, and Donovan turned around and glared at Dave. I will never forget that funny moment. Experiencing the NCAA tourney live was a cool experience.

That Friday night, we met up with Brandon and we went out and walked the streets and just had a blast hanging out. It was good to see him for the first time since the Party Poker cruise, where I met him, two years ago.

We left New Orleans immediately after the Sunday bball games. We drove alllllllll night long and ended up getting back to Seward at 11am. The 17 hour drive sucked and we decided we will probably never do that again. I didn't get much sleep at all when I wasn't driving but I finished out the trip fine. Overall, Spring Break was awesome!

Back at school, I finished up my exegetical in the two days after we returned. It is such a relief to not have that on my mind anymore. I have literally done less than one hour of homework in the week and a half since that paper was due.

Finally, in some fantastic news, I went to talk to Coach Schmidt about not playing basketball next year. I had a nice talk with him. I told him everything that was on my mind: the stress it caused me this year, how I have too many people ahead of me at my position, and just my loss of desire to improve over the summer. I told him how much I still love the game of basketball and that I still intend on being a coach when I take my first coaching job. Then, in maybe the shock of the century, he said, "Well Alex, I feel unfinished with you and we need guys like you in our program. What do you think about being our JV coach next year?" My jaw dropped to the floor. He then told me to think it through and get back to him next week. I was just in shock because I didn't think this guy cared about me at all being on his basketball team, much less ask me to be on his coaching staff. Anyway, this is a pretty easy decision because I won't have the stress of playing ball anymore and I will still be around the game and the team. Probably the biggest plus of this is that I will be able to put on my resume that I coached college basketball. So I told him yes this week and we will get all the details of the job figured out soon. I am really excited for next year now because I am ready to start my coaching career.

Sorry for such a long post, but I had a lot to catch up on. I'm going to try and get some pictures up.

Big XII Tourney

Well, we went to the second round of the Big XII tourney on Friday and it was awesome. We bought upper level seats for both sessions but we were able to move down to the first couple rows for the games, which was sweet! Dave and I got to see Kansas, A & M, Texas, and probably the best of all, Kevin Durant. Today, we went and tried to get tickets for the Semis, but they were way too expensive, so we just went to a bar and watched the games. When we got back to Tulsa, where we are staying with Dave's aunt and uncle, we folfed a little at the park across the street. It has been a great start to our spring break. Hopefully it gets even better as the time goes.

Life

I didn't think anyone read my blog, but I was wrong. So upon request, here is what is going on...

Basketball ended last week and I haven't been happier. It was a rough year that caused a created a ton of stress for me. Because of this, I am like 99% sure I am going to call it a career and forego my senior year. This last week without basketball has been great. I have had a lot of time to get on top of my homework and get ready for spring break. There is a chance that next year I will have too much time on my hands, but it will be worth it to not have the stress and frustration of another long, grueling season. The season was a rollercoaster ride for me. I was in the rotation, out of the rotation, in the rotation, and finished the season playing sparingly on defensive possessions. During this stretch, some of the younger guards proved to be better than me and earned their playing time. So it looks to be a very bleak chance that I would see playing time next year unless I become a lot better between now and then. The fact is, I have lost the drive that it takes to playing college basketball. I will still play a lot of basketball, but it is just going to be for fun. I still love the game so much and I have a desire to be a great coach. I am really excited for my first coaching job when I become a teacher. I have weighed all the positives and negatives to playing basketball next year and it is an obvious decision to not play. Just some of the positives include getting to see more of my brother's senior year of football at Montana and I get a Christmas break to go home and ski and see my high school friends. Though it is a really crucial decision, it is the correct one to call it a career.

Spring break...man I am excited! Dave and are going to have some fun. We are going to go down to Oklahoma City on Thursday and watch the Big XII conference tourney on Friday and Saturday. Tickets were sold out, but we are set on going, so hopefully we can get a reasonable price on tickets from a scalper. On Sunday, we are heading down to stay with a friend in Austin, TX on our way to South Padre Island, TX. This is supposedly a fun spring break destination so we are going to try it out for three days. From there we will drive all day on Thursday to New Orleans. Now here's the fun part. We have tickets to the first two rounds of the NCAA tourney on Friday the 16th and Sunday the 18th. Hopefully we will get to see some great teams play some classic games. I love March Madness! My friend, Brandon from Alabama, may be joining us for the Saturday in between. Hopefully we can find some fun stuff to do on that day in New Orleans. We have a hotel in the French Quarter, so hopefully we will be entertained. After the games on Sunday, we are going to drive the 17 hours back to Seward, hopefully making it back in time at least for classes on Tuesday, maybe Monday. But I don't really care. I am really excited, if you can't tell, for Spring Break. But things have to get done before that...

The Exegetical... yuck! This is a 25 page research paper on nine verses of the Bible that I was assigned. We have a 10 page packet that explains everything we have to do with the verse. We have to break it down word by word and analyze it. It is not really my favorite thing to do, but it needs to get done. It is due the Wednesday after Spring Break, so the plan is getting it done before I leave. Hopefully this is realistic. I am working on it slowly but surely. I have four more days... wish me luck.

Poker... I am distraught because the government has seized a lot of my money. All the money I have in Neteller has been frozen. All I can do is pray that I will get that money back sometime. For now, however, I have opened an epassporte account and have continued to play on Full Tilt. I have been making money, so I will continue to play. I only play when I have time, I don't make time for it like I used to. It is just something to due when I am in for the night. I try to just play weekend nights because those are by far the most profitable times to play.

Well, that's what going. If you have anymore questions or comments, feel free to say something.