By Jordan Delp

Jordan Delp is a men’s basketball player at Augustana. He is blogging about the team’s trip to China. For more posts about the Vikings’ journey, click here.

It was kind of a slow day in China for us today, one that we used mostly for travel. The beginning of the day gave us a unique opportunity however, one that few people can experience. Our entire team had the chance to be led in practice by an NBA coach with loads of experience and success.

Bob Hill, who formerly coached the New York Knicks, Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs, and (most recently) the Seattle SuperSonics, was in China for the 10th annual coaching clinic of the China Basketball Association. This is the same clinic we worked out at and played in front of the day before. Because of the motivation of the Chinese to become better and better at basketball, they have begun to bring in more high-profile personalities in order to teach their coaches how to better themselves and their teams.

Coach Hill led us through a series of drills, some of which we were familiar with, and some of which were new to us as well. Much of his focus was on the defensive side of the ball, discussing things such as transition defense, rebounding, and one-on-one defense. It was very interesting to hear his philosophies and ideas about how the game should be played, especially because they sounded so familiar to us. Many of the same principles that Coach Hill were preaching were the principles that define our program. To name a few, he said that a strong defense and rebounding the ball were two of the most important parts of being successful.

It was definitely one of the more enjoyable parts of the trip and I think our guys really soaked it in. After we finished at the clinic, we went back to our hotel and checked out to end our stay in Wuhan. We started a stretch of three flights in three days and a total of five flights in seven days today, flying from Wuhan to the capital city of China, which is Beijing. It was a shorter flight than the ones we have become use to on this trip, only two hours. We were able to see some of the city on our way from the airport to the hotel, and there were some pretty cool sights along the way.

Tonight is going to be a lazy night, because we have to get up early tomorrow for our next flight. We head to Hohhot, the capital city of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (still part of China). There, we will play in a 6,000-seat arena against a Chinese professional team. Our game is part of a festival commemorating the 60th anniversary of Inner Mongolia achieving autonomous recognition, and hopefully it will be a game to remember.