'Nother Win vs. Newcastle

Game day again today. We got to play at home against Newcastle, which was really nice! I slept in 'til noon, ate an awesome breakfast of cheesy scrambled eggs, bacon, peanut butter toast, a banana, and some orange juice. I took care of some school business and got ready to head down to the gym. We warmed up at 2:00, and the game tipped off at 3. Newcastle only had about eight players, and we had a bunch more than usual. I met the rest of the team that I hadn't met before, and they all said, "You're the American, huh? I've heard a lot about you!" I guess I'm an enigma... Ally, Dade, Julian, and I started again, and one of the new guys whose name I can't remember joined us. We started off slowly on the offensive end, and Newcastle hit a lot of three-pointers. We found ourselves down by about 8 halfway through the first quarter, but we battled our way back to take a 22-20 lead after the first. The second quarter slowed down even more. Newcastle plays slowly, and it was hard for us to get our fast breaks going. I officially got my first technical foul in Europe. They got a turnover and a fast break, and as the man with the ball was breaking toward the hoop, I cut in front of him and tried to steal the ball. I made no contact, and he wasn't even in the air trying to make a layup. The ref called a technical foul on me because I was the last man back and 'tried to undercut the player.' B.S. I asked Scott about it, and he even said that it was a horrid call. To add to that, I got stuck with a personal foul on the same play. Not sure how that works because usually technicals don't count as personals, but the game went on. I picked up a few more ticky-tack fouls and sat for the last three minutes of the half. We were ahead 32-30 at halftime. The third quarter was similar to the second in that it was slow, but we started to turn up the defensive pressure and good things started happening. We made some turnovers, got some layups, and started to shoot the ball well. The game remained close through the fourth quarter until the last five minutes. Newcastle stopped scoring and we closed the door. We made our free throws and eventually took the win 75-63. It was a great game because a lot of my friends here came to watch. We had quite the crowd! I ended up with 15 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists. It was, again, a ton of fun, and we're in the semifinals next week! It's the equivalent of the final four! Hopefully I'll eventually post some pictures of me playing so you'll have evidence that I'm not just making this whole story up! Tonight we're going to celebrate the win by getting some Mexican food, watching the U.S. play hockey, and going to the international student pub night. Hopefully the Strathclyde Saints can keep rolling all the way to a championship! The team said that if we win it all, I get to take the trophy home. I will make that happen, I swear. :)