Another year of hoops is here! I have to say, after sitting on the bench watching all of last season I’m pretty excited about this one! It is good to be back in a lot of different ways. After my injury last year it has made me appreciate different things that come from not just being around the game, but with playing the game.

It’s great to feel some pressure while being at the free-throw line by myself. It’s great to hit a few shots in a row. It’s great to have total confidence that the next shot is going in. It’s great to call a play in a huddle and have it executed just like I picture it in my head and have A.T. (Aaron Thompson) drain a three. It’s great being in the locker room with my teammates making fun of each other’s girlfriends or pulling pranks.

This past weekend was a fun one for the Washington U. basketball family. Tyler Nading and Tom Blount are both from Colorado and we had our opening tournament in Colorado Springs at Colorado College. It gave them the opportunity to show off our team and play in front of a lot of their friends, family, high school coaches and teammates that have never gotten the chance to see them play in college. It’s awesome that Coach Edwards is able to schedule tournaments like this, our tournament over Thanksgiving at Anderson University (close to Cam Smith’s home) and over winter break at Elmhurst College (we have a handful of people from the Chicago area) to allow friends and family the opportunity to see us play.

We won the tournament championship this past weekend after victories against North Park and Colorado College. When you walk in the gym at CC there is a big painting on the wall saying “Altitude 6,212 feet… Breathe Deeply!” and man they weren’t kidding. After the first game I was ready for the oxygen tank. My good buddy and conference rival in high school, Nick Williams plays for North Park and he even needed IV after the game—I’m not sure if it was just the altitude but it was definitely noticed by quite a few of our players too. Our exhibition game against Division II Missouri-St. Louis prepared us really well for the North Park game because of NPU’s athleticism and the different defenses they threw at us. I know they were shorthanded for a number of reasons but I’m sure they’ll turn some heads and knock off a few teams in the CCIW this year.

The next day we took on an emotionally charged CC team. CC was winless last year and they were coming off their first win in quite some time before taking us on in the championship game. I can promise this—that team is going to win more than one game this year if they play with that energy and intensity. That program is definitely going in the right direction and they have a nice group of guys. We got off to a good start but we were never really able to put them away. They hung around and hung around until tournament MVP AT buried a few threes at the end of the game to seal the deal.

I couldn’t be much more excited for our game this Saturday! Augustana is now 2-0 and we’re 2-0 and it should be a pretty fun battle between #1 and #2. Obviously it isn’t do or die at this point (like it was last March) but it will be a great measuring stick early in the season for both teams.

Until next time,
Sean

P.S. I want to thank Pat for giving me the opportunity to exercise my player-option on the second year of my blogging deal. I needed a gig in these tough economic times!