Category Archives: Augustana

Augie in China: From now, just tourists

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates are in China. He will be blogging regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

Our second day in Beijing marked the end of the basketball portion of our China tour. Our final game was an afternoon contest against the very talented Tsinghai (Ching-wah) University.

First, however, our team made the twenty minute ride from our hotel to the Temple of Heaven. The Temple ground was an ancient and sacred area for Chinese people. It was a large section of Beijing cut out for prayer, before the Temple became a tourist attraction. The Temple is 600 years old and contains multiple areas of prayer.

To get to the most recognizable Temple, the Temple of Prayer for Good Harvest, we walked under a large covered walkway which had many Chinese locals playing games, sitting or dancing on the large squares that surrounded the walkway. Once by the temple it was a very impressive structure that was made entirely of wood. An interesting fact about the Temple that Dr. Moline, who has been superb as our educational liaison on this trip, pointed out was how everything was built in multiples of nine, because the number nine signified that it was imperial.

Outside the temple

After the Temple, our focus shifted to getting out of China on a winning note. We knew Tsinghai University was going to be a very good team and that they were coming to America later this year to play Washington University in St Louis, a team who we also play later this season. The game was very physical from the start and they made it clear that they could compete with us. In the end, our constant defensive pressure, ball movement and rebounding was too much for Tsinghai and we cruised to an 86-68 victory.

The end of the end of basketball in China is bittersweet. We had a great time competing this summer against some of the best China has to offer. From this point on we are in China just as tourists. Still left to see are Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. To finish China by seeing three of their most historical landmarks in going to be something special.

Kyle Nelson

Augie in China: Arriving in Beijing

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates are in China. He will be blogging regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

Augustana has arrived in Beijing, China!

After many days of travel, lots of sightseeing and three games, we have made to the last stop (in China that is, we stop in Tokyo, Japan also) of our China ’10 tour. We awoke in Xi’an at 5:45 am, ate a quick breakfast and drove to the airport to catch our 8:30 am flight. We were flying to Beijing early to prepare for our game against the Chinese Junior National team later that afternoon.

This team was the best group of Chinese players in the nation that were 18-21 years old. However, according to an inside source, an American weightlifting coach for the Chinese women’s basketball team, this team was playing as an 18-and-under team. Clearly age requirements are very loosely followed in China…just like their gymnastics team from the Olympics.

This team is also the group of players that will represent China at the World University Games in Shenzhen, China in 2011 and will be one of the gold medal favorites playing in its home country. We played the game against this team at the National Fitness and Training Center in Beijing. This center was a walled off area of Beijing, essentially like a gated neighborhood, that had facilities and training grounds for every sport that China competes in internationally. This is the location where they would have trained for the 2008 Olympics. As we drove in we got to see their female weightlifters, swimmers and drivers, and their gymnastics team all in training. It also appeared to have dormitories where the athletes would live on the grounds as well. It was a very impressive facility.
 
To say that their Junior National team was tall would be quite an understatement. On their frontline they had at least four 7-footers, including a 7’2 center. I am proud to say I won the tip from the guy although I don’t think my quick tip was legal. For the majority of the game we outplayed the taller Team China. Our energy and defensive intensity overwhelmed the Chinese players who were not as physical as us, which allowed us to outrebound them. Everyone that played did a tremendous job, but unfortunately the outcome did not go in our favor. We ended up losing by one as a last second shot off a nicely executed play drawn up by Coach Giovanine did not drop.
 
We came away from this game a positive note however. We competed and outplayed the best that China has to offer at our age. Of course we would have like to have been winners, but playing this caliber of completion in the environment that we did is something rare to experience in the summer.
 
We looks to bounce back today by facing one of the top five university teams in all of China, Tsinghai University. This team just back from a camp coached by American coaches and is looking for revenge after we beat them three years ago in a close game. This game is sure to be a tough contest, and we plan on leaving China on a winning note!
 
Kyle Nelson

Augie in China: A physical game

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates are in China. He will be blogging regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

Our final day in Xi’an consisted of a morning sightseeing trip and a game. In the morning we gathered to see the 600 year old Xi’an city wall. The wall was 36 ft high and nine miles around in a rectangle shape. It was an impressive structure that had four entrances to the inner city at the North, South, East and West sides. Our guide explained that the entrances had to be altered to handle today’s foot and car traffic into the city.

We spent about an hour on the wall before heading to the markets and back four a pregame meal at the hotel.

It was an hour drive to Xi’an University, which is also called Northwest Polytechnic University. The campus was very modern looking and had a large basketball arena. Our game was played in front of about 1000 fans that there were not as loud as the previous match. The officials allowed a physical game, which was fine for us. We jumped to a big lead at half and rode the momentum for a 78-54 final to move our record to 3-0 in China.

We have a very early flight to Beijing in the morning and then play the National Developmental CBA team at their training center. This will be the second game of a three day, three game stretch and it is sure to be the best opponent thus far.

Vikes look to go 4-0 tomorrow!

Kyle Nelson

Augie in China: Back in the air

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates are in China. He will be blogging regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

Our fourth flight of the trip brought us to the city of Xi’an in central China. The flight from Wuhan to here lasted only about an hour and a half. It seems like the flights are getting shorter and shorter. When we landed we were greeted by Mr. Chang (pronounced J-ong) our guide in Xi’an. Our first stop was lunch and then it was on to see the Terracotta warriors. The warriors were clay sculptures of an army that Emperor Qing (“Ch-in”) who reigned in about 200 B.C., had commissioned and buried along with his body so that he would have an army in the afterlife.
 
The site of the soldiers was massive. There were three different pits that we stopped at. The first was the pit where the first terracotta warrior was discovered by peasants who were digging for a well in 1974. What they happened to find was one of the greatest discoveries of this century. The other two pits that we saw were both discovered by archeologists when they began digging around the initial discovery site.
 
Terracotta warriors

The clay army was made up of infantry men, archers, horses, generals, captains and chariots. Much of the collection is either broken or undiscovered, but much of the army is exposed for this public to see. The warriors were made to be actual size, where as the horses and the chariots were scaled down to half of their true sizes. I thought that something very interesting was that not a single soldier was identical to another. Each warrior had its own face and given the massive scale of the army, that was an impressive undertaking. The terracotta warriors provided some once in a lifetime pictures because truly there is nothing else like them on this planet.
 
After seeing the warriors we went back to our hotel and then set off into downtown Xi’an on our own. We headed to the local market which was positioned right behind the bell and drum towers that have been at the center of Xi’an since the city was established. This market was one of the most lively and exciting and it sold goods that ranged from Rolex watches to squirrel on a stick.
 
Early night to rest for a game against Xi’an University tomorrow.
 
Kyle Nelson

Augie in China: Tourism and industry

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates are in China. He will be blogging regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

After a day fully devoted to basketball, today was a change of pace and was focused on tourism and learning. Our day began at nine o’clock in the morning and we headed to an ecological garden in a township on the outskirts of Wuhan. The ecological garden was a government-funded group that would bring in local farmers, free of charge, and teach them how and what to grow in the region to be successful and profitable. We wandered the grounds briefly before getting back on the bus to head to a crane factory in town.

The crane factory was one that built the massive cranes that are used to construct very tall buildings. The most noticeable thing was how bad the working environment was and the limited protection that the workers had while operating heavy machinery. The money that these employees got paid was not nearly enough to compensate for the risk they were taking. I believe their payments came to about 300 United States dollars a month.
 
After the crane factory we walked around the town a bit then headed to the tea and rice fields. Here we saw the large plots of land where they would grow and sell their products. Dr. Norm Moline, the Augustana geography professor who has been so instrumental in making this trip great, and our local guide spent some time explaining how these products worked best for this land and environment.

Tea fields

We had three more stops on our trip for the day. The first was to the government building of the township. Here we spent some time listening to one of the town officials speak about the future of the township and how it was expanding.

The next two stops were factories that were complete 180 degree turns from what he had been seeing. They were in a “High Tech Economic Zone”

The first was a company that built laser machines that served many purposes. Some examples were machines that reduced wrinkles, could help with skin cancer and could remove tattoos. The company officials explained how they were already successful in Europe, but were seeking to gain FDA approval so they could begin sales in the United States. One of the employees demonstrated the use of the machine on assistant coach Larry Schulte, but everyone was rather skeptical if it actually had any effect. Finally, the last stop on our non-stop tour was a factory that produced goods ranging from popsicles to baby formula. We were taken inside of their warehouse and watched the assembly line workers package and make these good that were shipped to all corners of China.
 
Overall, it was a very informative day and a good learning experience to see how business operated in a foreign nation.
 
Off to Xi’an in the morning!
 
— Kyle Nelson