Day Off in San Juan

Saturday is a day off for us (and boy did we work hard to earn it). Yesterday we (there are four of total - two buddies who are both UD class of '07 and Tim and I) drank an entire bottle of rum at the hotel pool before the Flyers game. This is noteworthy for two reasons:

1) As we were quite literally pouring our last drink from the bottle, one of the hotel employees came over and told us there was no drinking in the pool area. We begged to differ using the previous hour and a half as evidence.

2) I'm trying to party like I did in college and failing quite miserably. I really can't drink liquor anymore, and I'm only 25, which means I'm pathetic. It also means I don't remember yesterday's game against 'Nova in much detail. Flyers got down big, mounted a furious comeback late and fell just short. Luke Fab played well, Marcus Johnson needs to channel Stella and soon, the better team won, but it was an encouraging effort from our Flyers. Love that this team never says die even if it didn't squeak out a W yesterday afternoon.

Friend of the blog Glen Rice was kind enough to pose for a picture with me as GT was closing out a win against Mason. That will be my new profile picture on facebook on Monday. (And yes, I'm THAT guy.)

There is a happy hour during games at the arena here in PR. During games! Three dollar Coors Lights during halftime only. Our crew bought two apiece, walked down to our seats, set them down and immediately bought two more. If you want to get people from Dayton, Ohio, to spend their money, have a happy hour during halftime of a UD game.

We've been asking different local people where to go and what to do in San Juan, and at least four have recommended a strip club called Frenchy's. Now, I see three options here:

a) Frenchy's is the best strip club on the entire island, if not the planet.

b) Puerto Rican people think that all Americans love to go to strip clubs.

c) We just look like a bunch of perverts.

It's probably C. We haven't been there ... yet.

Went to a bar in old San Juan last night. They noticed four Gringos in there, and what song did they play for us? The electric slide. Puerto Ricans actually think Americans dance to that song. The kicker was when they played the local version of the electric slide. The dance steps are the same, but the music most definitely is not.

There was also a congo line featuring someone from the bar pouring shots of some unknown liquor concoction straight into our mouths. From what I recall, it was delicious.

Today we split our time between the beach (it looks nothing like the picture above, but still) and the pool. Tim said it best; this place is absolutely paradise. I said I wanted to buy a bar and move here, and I was only kinda joking.

A couple Flyers came to our hotel in the afternoon. Apparently, Mickey Perry's mom is staying here, and Mickey, London and Paul Williams came to see visit her. P-Will was playing a couple hands of blackjack and LW was just wandering aimlessly around the casino.

More updates to come tomorrow before, during or after K-State. We plan on doing a super sweet podcast (as if there were any other time) when we get back to the mainland and recuperate. Keep it tuned here in the meantime.

VillanOVER

So we have our third must win game of our four game season Sunday. Am I dramatic or is that actually true? Vote on the poll.

The Game
Well, we lost. I’m not gonna talk a lot about it because I’m still in the “I’m pissed off” zone. Maybe Secaur will give a rundown later. However I do have a few bullets.

*We need to get buckets when we needed them and we didn’t. Did that make sense? The first ten minutes of the second half were brutal. When you play the #5 team in the country, you cannot wait until the last five minutes to make your run.

*Nova is a solid squad. We spoke with an older gentleman in front of us from NY who remembered a man named Arlen Bockhorn playing in Madison Square Garden. I pointed out Buckey for him sitting next to Larry across the court. He liked it.

*In general, Nova fans were nice. I commented in the bathroom, to a priest, that we both hate Jesuits. He laughed. You can't beat a good priest joke ... ever.

*That last run was nice. Swing of the game for me was when CJ missed that three and they scored on the next possession. Not sure of the timing, maybe around two minutes left to go. Needed that one and badly.

*Luke haters, where are you? We don't win without him yesterday and we aren't close today if he's not on the floor. Is it just cool to hate on the kid, even if he does well? BG had him on the floor in the final minutes of the game at the 5 over Kurt - look for that to be a trend, especially if we're down.

OK, game analysis is over, time for sweet stuff that happened in PR.

*We ask the bartender where we should go for the night, and he told us about a bar called Lupis. Naturally we ask directions and he gives us the following answer: “You go up two blocks and take a right, and about one block after the cock fighting arena you’ll see it”.

Your reaction reading that was this same as ours. Ummm, COCK FIGHING ARENA?!?! Seriously?!? We then asked him for the details and we’re determined to place a hefty wager on the finest cock in Puerto Rico (take it easy, perverts). Not really sure if “our type” are welcome inside Cock Fighting Stadium but we’re ready to test the waters. They fight tomorrow and we’ll be there.


*So yesterday we played Ga. Tech. You remember when Favors missed the free throw early in the first half? During his free throws I was screaming, and I mean screaming at him about how he was too concerned about the NBA draft. I was asking, “What pick are you Favors? Too concerned about the draft, Favors?” His mother was not happy with me in the least bit. She turned around, looked me in the eye and screamed in my face, “SPOT HATIN'!! STOP HATIN'!!!” When Favors (and his mother) are rich, I guess I’ll have a story to tell.

*UD students, weak effort. Kansas State has about 15 dudes who just rock and roll every night. They’ve skipped class (before they even knew what classes they were taking) so that they could rock out in San Juan. It’s a giant sausage fest but it’s freaking hilarious. I’m now a Kansas State fan unless we play them.

*There really aren’t rules in Puerto Rico. Seriously. You can drive wherever you want without consequence of traffic offenses. Traffic rules here are suggestions only. Drinking beer in the cab is not frowned upon. No meters in the cab, all prices are negotiable. Drinking/gambling age is 18 (more to come on this next). This place is Paradise.

*We found out last night that an individual can drink and gamble here when they are 18 years of age. When my parents were calling other parents to make sure they supervised me at an overnight party, I could have been drinking and gambling in Puerto Rico. I guess I was doing that anyway, minus the Puerto Rico part, however I regret never taking advantage of an underage vacation here.

*I was really loud at the game tonight. My brother texted me to say that he could hear, “Call the charge both ways, sir” on the radio broadcast. Larry and Bucky were sitting cross court from me so I was proud. At halftime I was complimented/insulted by several Villanova fans about my antics. One lady said, “You are loud, we don’t’ like you, but we wish we had a fan like you here tonight.” Greatest compliment I’ve ever had in my life. I'm a Bengals fan and it's kinda how I feel about Hines Ward.

*Good night at the craps table last night for UDFlyerNation.

*We’re still looking for Blackburn and Fieldhouse. We’re thinking of having a blog party, just as long is it doesn’t sound like any of Blackburn’s podcasts. I’m guessing the party would be filled with awkward conversation of Ray wondering why he’s the best writer while Blackburn wonders why most readers are offended by everything on his blog. Advantage still stays with UDFlyerNation.blogspot.com

UD - Ga Tech Recap

Greetings again from Puerto Rico. In case you were wondering, 85 and sunny here this afternoon and it felt even hotter with humidity. Just thought our Ohio readers might like to know.

We are, at present, sitting in the hotel lobby/bar enjoying two hours of free drinks. Dayton fans and free alcohol = a recipe for trouble. I'm pretty sure the employee who came up with this idea has already been terminated. Now, if I can put down my rum and Coke long enough, some thoughts on today's W over Ga Tech.

*Absolutely had to have this game, and the Flyers got it. I'm still not entirely sure how it happened, but they got the job done. With this team it is rarely, if ever, pretty, but we'll take it.

*Can't say enough about P-Will's play down the stretch. Seven points in the final minute of the game, including a huge go-ahead 3 and 4-4 from the foul line. Great poise out of a kid who's only a sophomore.

*Speaking of sophomores, Chris Johnson with 19 points and 7 boards. Team high in both. Ho hum.

*I thought this was a great game, especially the last ten minutes of it. UD fans to put the Ga Tech supporters to shame. This may be an exagerration, but it seemed like there was about a 10:1 ratio in our favor. The Flyer fans wanted this win badly too, and I'm happy to say they got it.

*If I told you that Chris Wright would have 7 points and 6 turnovers and MJ would have no points, 5 turnovers and 4 fouls and the Flyers still win, you'd have called me crazy.

*Luke Fab - 4-7 from 3, 12 points in just 7 minutes of play. The problem remains that BG just can't play him down the stretch in close games because of his D. Not complaining though because his and CJ's 3-point shooting (8-15 combined) won this game (along with P-Will's clutch play down the stretch) for the good guys.

*Turnovers have the potential to absolutely kill this team. Six from CW, 5 Marcus, 4 Mickey Perry (who played awfully by the way). Can't have that from your upperclassmen. Luckily for the Flyers, GT turned it over a whopping 26 times.

*You think BG was sending Benson a message when we saw Kav not once, but during two different stints in the first half?

*Favors is gonna be nasty, but he's still a freshman. He didn't seem to be aware of who was guarding him at different times. Twice he took turnaround and/or fadeaway jumpers when Luke Fab was guarding him. I guess he didn't know he could have just taken one power drill and went up and dunked on him.

*Kurt played solid. 1-1 from the field and it looked like a solid post move. Five boards including two on the offensive end. And one major mental blunder. Saving that ball underneath your own hoop and basically gifting the Jackets a dunk is unforgiveable. Good thing it didn't come back to bite UD hard.

*My buddy Scott and I were walking up toward the concourse at halftime when he looked at me and said ,"Is that Glen Rice?" It turns out that it was, and he was on hand to watch his son (Glen Rice Jr.), who plays for Ga Tech. Scott and I actually went up and talked to him for three or four minutes during halftime. (Yeah, we're those guys.) He was genuinely a nice guy and really hid his digust for having to talk to two white kids from the Ohio really well. He also had a smoking hot broad on his arm who looked to be about 15 years his junior.

When we got back to our seats, I told Tim about the encounter. His response: "You know why he was happy to talk to you? Because nobody's recognized him in five years." I'd argue with that if I could. My only regret is that I didn't tell him how awesome he was on NBA Jam.

UD 63 - GT 59. Bring on 'Nova (who squeaked past George Mason by a single point) tomorrow.

The Journey

4:25am - Wake up call from Kevin - time to get this thing started.

5:10am - Kevin's mom drives us to Cincinnati/NKY airport (yes, we are grown men).

6:00am - $8.58 for a sketchy breakfast sandwich and milk. The Gold Star Chili was open. Riddle me this? Who eats chili cheese coneys at 6am?

6:40am - And we're set for take off - nasty morning here in the tri-state area.

8:00am - Nice, quick easy flight into Charlotte - time to wait for the big one.




8:30 - Our good friend Mike (and by good friend I mean a random guy who approached Kevin and I because of my UD hat) stopped by in the airport to say hello. Flyer fans are the friendliest in the country. Dude literally came up, introduced himself and shook our hand.

Quick note on this: I had an extra ticket for the Creighton game and went over to the ticket line to give it away. I had to literally wait in a line to GIVE away a ticket to the game because so many people were doing the same thing - none of which were asking for a dime. Flyer fans are fantastic (sounds like a Secaur headline).

9:00 - Judging by this giant plane display in the airport, these fools think that North Carolina was the birthplace of aviation. Have they ever seen an Ohio license plate? Have they not heard of the Dayton FLYERS? Kevin and I are going around to people one by one and informing them about the REAL birthplace of aviation.



Dayton > Kitty Hawk


9:10 - And they've called our zone. Time to board. We'll try to update on the ground but it's Puerto Rico, I may not touch my computer for the rest of the week.

9:40 - Nice big comfy plane is in the air with about a dozen folks in Flyer gear on board and no sign of Ga. Tech fans; we've already won. Forget the fact there are direct flights from Atlanta to San Juan, Ga. Tech fans travel horribly because there weren't any on a flight from Charlotte.

10:30 - Two ladies in Secaur's row offered him a snack. He first refused but they insisted he take some of their peanut butter crackers, and he happily obliged. What did they offer me you ask? A freaking apple! I declined and I think they were genuinely insulted.

1:15 - This bird has landed. Unfortunately the San Juan airport has one person handling all bags for all airlines. Which leads me to...

2:15 - We get our bags and hop in the car. Below was the reaction when the locals realized UDFlyerNation had descended on their native soil...


2:20 - If you ever fly into San Juan do not wait in the cab line. Apparently there's an option of blowing right by everyone in the line and getting your own cab. Secaur, being the conformist that he is, made us wait in the line (he may argue with this).

The lady in front of us said she was going to our hotel, so we politely offered her a share of our cab. Turns out she's on business and paid for the whole thing. People are being too nice to us ... I feel like this cannot end well.



2:25 - Meet Pablo. Don't bother asking Pablo anything about Puerto Rico. After telling us there was no beach I inquired about the weather, asking if it was on and off sun and rain. Pablo replied, "Ya, sun rain, rain sun".

2:40 - Hotel is tight. Casino downstairs, two bedroom suite. There are two giant clear glass elevators that face the common area. Secaur and I have set the over/under at Thursday at midnight for when our buddy will unveil the full moon to the poor saps in the common area.

That's it folks - time to rock PR style. We'll check in tomorrow.

The Kurt Conundrum*

Game one of the 2009-'10 UD basketball season is in the books, and what does that mean? It's time to overreact and make sweeping generalizations about an entire season based on a mere forty minutes of play.

Chris Johnson is a sure-fire First Team All-A10 performer and will average a double-double this year. Chris Wright has moved from late second rounder to lottery pick in next spring's NBA Draft. Freshman Matt Kavanaugh is resigned to a career riding the bench as Flyers fans hopelessly wish for his scholarship back. Kurt Huelsman needs to stay out of foul trouble and be on the court more if UD is to have success this year.

Wait ... what?

Many followers of UD hoops may think that last sentence is the most ludicrous of all. Perhaps, but it is, at present, the only one I actually believe to be true. Kurt Huelsman, he of the 0 points and 1 rebound in the season opener, needs to be on the court more. And the reason for that is simple: his defense.

Josh Benson struggled in the opener, especially on the defensive end. This has been well documented. Devin Searcy is a really solid player, and I hold high hopes for the last two seasons of his career as a Flyer. Also, I'm just as sick of the whole tangibles vs. intangibles debate as you are. That's why I wanted to bring the topic of Kurt's playing time back around to something that is, in my mind at least, very tangible. And Huelsman is, simply put, Dayton's best interior defender.

To me there were two key differences at the beginning of the second half when the Flyers made their run against Creighton. Those were the presence of London Warren and Huelsman, both of whom were forced to sit out much of the first half with foul trouble. With those two guys on the floor, UD is lightyears better as a defensive squad.

Huelsman's weaknesses have been discussed ad naseum at this point, and I've been one of his bigger critics especially last season. The fact that a guy who is (allegedly) 6'10" can only grab four rebounds a game still boggles the mind, but I've come to grips with Huelsman's limitations. And I'm of the opinion that what he brings to the defensive end outweights his lack of offensive output for this particular Dayton team.

So what does all this mean? Basically, I think Kurt needs to start, defend the opposition's best post player, and play 20-24 minutes a game ... which is convenient because that's exactly what's going to happen. Brian Gregory has been fiercely loyal to his senior center and seems hellbent on starting Huelsman every single game of his college career no matter how well or poorly the big man plays.

I'm embracing Gregory's stubbornness because I've convinced myself it's what's best for the Flyers. I also think Kurt slows down Georgia Tech's heralded freshman big man on Thursday (notice I said slows down, not shuts down) and helps lead the Flyers to a W. I also think a part of UD's game plan is to go inside to Kurt on offense and maybe pick up a quick foul or two on Favors early in the game.

In the podcast, I said UD wins 82-77. I'm amending that pick because I don't know that the Flyers can really score 82; I got all caught up in the excitement of scoring 90 against CU. I'm still going Flyers by five, 76-71.

Wright named co-player of the week
According to daytonflyers.com:

University of Dayton junior Chris Wright has been named Atlantic 10 Co-Player of the Week after his 25-point performance, including 18 in the second half, to lead the Flyers to a 90-80 win over Creighton in the season opener for both teams.

Wright shared this year's first A-10 Player of the Week award with Duquesne junior Damian Saunders. This is the second time that both players have been named players of the week, and in an odd coincidence, they also shared co-player of the week honors last season when they were named on November 30.

Wow, that is a whacky coincidence.

Perry struggles in opener
I had high hopes for Mickey Perry entering his senior season, but he had a rough afternoon Saturday against Creighton. I really thought an entire offseason of playing the point coupled with his strong performances in two exhibition contests meant he was ready to take the reins of UD's offense behind London Warren. Instead, he turned the ball over three times and the offense just doesn't seem to flow when he's in charge. If LW gets into foul trouble in Puerto Rico, it could be a long couple of games for the Flyers. And Rob Lowery can't get healthy soon enough for me.

Miami (OH) might be good?
Or it might not. I watched a good chunk of the Kentucky-Miami game last night, and the RedHawks gave UK everything it wanted and then some. Miami led by as much as 18 in the first half, but the Wildcats clawed back and John Wall hit the game-winner with 0.5 left. Could have been a fluke, though, as MU shot a ridiculous percentage from three. Some dude named Winbush hit eight himself. He hit four or five in a row to start the game prompting UK's announcer to exclaim, "A windfall for Winbush!" (I'm Mike Hartsock and I approve this call.) This is the same Miami team which lost by 11 to Towson -- another team on UD's schedule -- in its season opener, so take that for what it's worth.

Here's how Charlie Coles reacted - hilarious.



*During my senior year at UD, I was the assistant sports editor for the award-winning Flyer News. One of the things the sports editor and I would do is try to write the most atrocious headlines possible for our stories. The worse the headlines, the better as far as we were concerned. We especially loved to use alliteration, as in "Dominant Dayton defense downs Drake." (I'm not sure why we were so easily amused by this. College kids.) All things considered, "The Kurt Conundrum" is a pretty weak effort. Here's a classic one that I wrote featuring puns!

Viva Los Flyers

18 points and 15 rebounds from Chris Johnson? 25 and 8 from Flyers Jesus? 0 and 1 from Kurt Huelsman? It all happened Saturday. The Flyers overcame a pretty poor first half of play, outscored a game Creighton team 49-34 in the second half, and came away with a win in the season opener. Tim's last post highlighted (overstated?) the importance of getting that W against the Blue Jays.

Riding high from UD's 1-0 start, Tim and I got together for a little podcast. During it we discuss Chris Johnson's beastliness, the blueprint for beating the Flyers, a Puerto Rico preview and much much more.

Download and listen here.

And don't forget to follow us on twitter under the name UDFlyers.

Let's get it on!

So remember when I sarcastically joked about UD having real actual media people who make videos? We'll those clever sons of guns are at it again. This got me all fired up.



Check out daytonflyers.com for more. They've posted several really good videos about the 2010 recruiting class as well. Kudos to you, New Flyer Media Department.

Programming notes: we plan to do a podcast after the Creighton game before we leave for Puerto Rico (can't wait for that 6:00am flight). We'll tweet like mad men from PR with hopefully an article/day and cap it off with another podcast once we're back.

Go Flyers!