Tag Archives: Brazil

Augie: Arriving in Rio!

Posted on by

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. Brandon Motzel is blogging for the men’s team.

We have arrived in Rio!

After a long day of traveling and airports, the team has arrived. For now we have checked into our hotel, the Merlin Copacabana Hotel, and we are catching up on some much needed sleep. Tonight we will be playing our first game and will get to experience our first night’s stay in Rio!

Heading to Brazil!

Posted on by

TamblingThe 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.

The Augustana women’s basketball team is gearing up for a great trip to Brazil!

After two weekends of intense practices we are now back in our respective hometowns to pack and prepare for the long flight ahead. Words can’t describe how much excitement and anticipation we have going into the trip. We are so excited to be able to play three games, participate in some community service activities and basketball clinics, and enjoy the culture while we are in Rio.

Can’t wait to get there!

Case in Brazil: Facing the pros

Posted on by

The Case Western Reserve men’s basketball team is in Brazil, and blogging about the experience as well. Evan Tsudis writes:

I’m writing this blog after one of the hardest and more physical games of my career but I’ll pull a Pulp Fiction and keep you hanging. Last night we enjoyed our last night in Paraty. For a small colonial town it showed a lot of life at night. We enjoyed live music and attempted to converse in Portuguese with the locals. They even let Reid step up to the guitar and give Brazil a taste of his original music. After a nice rest we boarded the bus on the way to our game. Most watched movies or tried to contort their large bodies into small seats to sleep.

We arrived at our game around 6:00 local time. There were fans waiting for us to get off the bus and trying to get autographs. The gym was the nicest we have seen in Brazil and had a lot of life to it. Music was constantly playing and the stands were near capacity. After the playing of the national anthems and handshakes it was time to begin.

Basketball in Brazil and the United States is a bit different. The court and paint have different dimensions and the rules are interpreted differently. Physical play is encouraged and things like palming the ball and lane violations are at the discretion of the referee. The team we were against was a professional team and was extremely physically gifted. The combination of our rust and the other teams athleticism led to a 107 to 57 victory for our opponents. After the game we took pictures and signed autographs for the fans. Every place we’ve played we’ve been treated like rock stars and followed until we drive away.

This whole trip has been an amazing experience. It has been a great time to see new things and spend time with my teammates. Some of my favorite activities were our adventure at sea on the Sir Francis Drake yesterday and taking a picture with my Terrible Towel at Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. I’d also like to point out that my beach soccer team of Rob, Summers, Reid, Brian Curth, Bokan and myself are coming back to Cleveland 2-0 and looking for challengers. One shout out to my father, Peter Tsudis, who celebrated his birthday on Aug. 14.

Go Steelers!

Case in Brazil: Snorkel, hammocks, boat

Posted on by

The Case Western Reserve men’s basketball team is in Brazil, and blogging about the experience as well. Tim Maleski writes:

Day number two in Paraty started out in an unusual way to say the least, as Reid, Ryan, Alex, and I woke up to the fresh smell of rain after spending the night sleeping in the hammocks located outside the rooms. Our group originally started with six members, but Brian slept inside after failing to fall asleep after an hour lying in the hammock and Colin left due to his constant fear that he was definitely going to fall out.

We were set to leave for our boat ride on the Atlantic Ocean at 9:30, but due to inclement weather that we have been getting a great deal of lately, we had to push our ride back to 11:00. So once the time came, we walked to the bay to board our boat. The first place we stopped allowed us to get in the water for the first time. We swam, jumped off the boat, and snorkeled. We tried to catch fish with a three reals bet that we couldn’t. Unfortunately, we had no success with this with endeavor.

Case on a boat in Paraty, Brazil

Our second stop on our boat trip landed us close to a beach. After swimming into shore, we spent the next hour jumping off rocks, playing a game of soccer, and diving into the water in our attempts to catch a soccer ball. The highlight of our trip to this spot was our dancing. With techno music blaring from another boat in the background, the twelve of us did the famous “Party Boy” dance on Coach Gorski. We though it was hilarious, but the same couldn’t be said for Coach Gorski. Not only did he almost drop his prized iPhone, but he also came out of the dancing with a bruised lip.

After we pulled up our anchors there, we sailed a few more minutes and settled down on the boat for lunch. Upon finishing lunch, we headed to our final destination. It was here that we searched for turtles and jumped off the boat to catch soccer balls. From the boat we watched a local man climb a twenty foot high tree and throw coconut after coconut down to a group of girls. Chris even went on a solo adventure to the shore. He said he was looking to grab a coconut, but the rest of us knew he just wanted to talk to the group of girls. Lucky for him, he did manage to come back with a coconut full of juice, but we knew it was just an excuse. Most importantly, our entire team had a really impressive feat catching the soccer ball that can be seen with the videos.

We headed back to the dock to end our boat trip. Feeling both fatigued as well as sunburnt, we were ready to go back to the hotel and relax for the rest of the night. Our time in Paraty was coming to an end, and tomorrow we will head for the mountains.

Case in Brazil: Rio de Janeiro

Posted on by

The Case Western Reserve men’s basketball team is in Brazil, and blogging about the experience as well. Colin Mulholland writes:

Today began with a 6:40 a.m. wake up call and was followed by a 7 a.m. sprint workout on the beach. As delightful as a beach workout may seem, think twice about running sprints in quick sand. During our workout and in between gasping for air, we witnessed several kids in wet suits riding humongous waves. The locals made the boogie boarding look easy … little did we know.

After the workout, we showered, ate, and made our way to the Christ the Redeemer statue. A brief tour of the city in route to the train stop which all seemed like common procedure; however, if you ask Kevin Carduff, he may tell you otherwise. Kevin spent the majority of the train ride with his head between his legs due to a tremendous fear of heights. He battled and was able to say that he saw one of the modern era seven wonders of the world. From the platforms, we were able to view the entire city. One of the key landmarks was a soccer stadium, which hosted the 1950 World Cup.

After the statue, we were given some time to spend in the hippie market or try our hand at bogey boarding. The cold temperatures and huge waves deterred most of the guys, from the ocean, but Bokan and I had decided to give it a shot. It turns out the other ten guys made the better decision. The current took us a couple hundred yards down the beach in a matter of minutes, and the only waves we caught were not by choice. We were thrown around for about ten minutes until “Scuba Sam,” the Brazilian life guard, in his manly Speedo and flippers decided it would be best if we got out of the water. We agreed.

Later in the afternoon, we were told that we would be in the stadium we saw earlier, amongst 60,000 crazy Brazilian fans watching a tournament game between the fifth seeded Internacionals and the first seeded, host Fluminense. The game ended with the local team from Rio, Fluminense, winning 3-0, but the real excitement was the fans. We were easily picked out in the crowd, but when we found out that screaming and jumping around was encouraged, we were just like everyone else. All in all, it was another incredible day in Brazil. We are headed towards Partay in the morning.