The Augustana basketball teams are heading to Brazil this week and will be blogging on the trip. Chaney Tambling is blogging for the women’s team and you can catch their blog posts on the D3hoops.com Daily Dose. Mark Roth is blogging for the men’s team.

Well we’ve done it again.

We have our second win of this Brazil trip and have just one more to go! Today’s game was by far a highlight of this trip.

While we played a normal game, even more fun came after the game where we split up Brazilian players and Augie players and played together on opposing teams so that we could play with each other and against each other. The language barrier provided a bit of an obstacle because we couldn’t run plays or most of the time even tell who was on our team, but that didn’t stop us from having fun.

We played more five on five for about five minutes, and then the Brazilian coach decided to have us play a 10 on 10 game where we couldn’t dribble. Then it became really confusing. Imagine 20 girls running around speaking different languages having different uniforms on and having no idea what exactly you should be doing or what others are telling you to do. It was a blast! Chaos of course, but a blast.

After the game we had more socializing time with everyone. We brought t-shirts to exchange with the players and they had brought some for us! Of course in true Brazilian fashion there were many photos and hugs to go along with the exchange, but it was fun to get to have a token from Brazil and to be able to leave something from Augustana there as well.

We’ve also decided that when we return to the Quad Cities, along with balls and nets we will be sending old jerseys and practice clothes for them to have and use. The women’s teams here do not have a lot of money. Their nets are worn and very old and they only have about six balls which are brought to the games in a garbage bag. We want to be able to share our things with them and allow them to continue basketball here in Brazil. Many of these girls are very good and some even end up getting recruited to play and study in the United States, so being able to help more of them is something that we’re happy to do.

along with balls and nets we will be sending old jerseys and practice clothes for them to have and use. The women’s teams here do not have a lot of money. Their nets are worn and very old and they only have about six balls which are brought to the games in a garbage bag. We want to be able to share our things with them and allow them to continue basketball here in Brazil.

For tonight we will be heading down to the beach to grab dinner, go shopping, and see whatever else there is to offer on the beach at night. Tomorrow we will go to the Olympic Village to meet some underprivileged children and be able to interact, play games, and have some fun with them while we are here.

Can’t wait for what else Brazil has to offer!