BEAUMONT, Texas – We
are sitting in the Montagne Center on the campus of Lamar University with
roughly 83 minutes and 12 seconds before the start of Denver’s second game of
the season. The team arrived in Houston yesterday at about 3 p.m. and bussed
east through heavy traffic for about two hours before reaching Beaumont, about
10 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. A dinner at a popular chain restaurant
concluded a fairly, and thankfully, uneventful day of travel.
Beaumont and the surrounding communities are still
recovering from Hurricane Ike last summer. Blue tarps are all too common, and
the majority of fast food restaurants around town still are missing their
signs. The Montagne Center itself looks pretty good at first glance, but if you
looks closely the southeast corner of the building has clear signs of restoration.
The ceiling tiles are a bit whiter than the rest of the arena, and the wall
above the upper seats is painted an off-white that does not quite blend in with
the rest of the walls. The concourse on the east side of the building was just
opened to the public again for the first time tonight, following repairs to
duct work and pipes. We were told that similar damage was done to the southwest
corner of the building occurred three years ago with Hurricane Rita. After
seeing the damage last week caused by flooding in Cedar Rapids from over the
summer, this team has probably seen enough devastation for the year.
Life on the road for the players is pretty routine. Wake up
late, eat breakfast as a team, wait around for a while, go to shoot around at
the arena, wait around for a while, eat pregame meal as a team, wait around a
while, head back to the arena for the game. It was the usual today. The team
was willing to eat in the regular breakfast area of the hotel, but there are
only 28 seats, so taking up 21 of them with the team, coaches and travel party
did not seem like the best thing to do. Instead, the players ate scrambled
eggs, bacon, potatoes, bagels, fruit and juices. The pregame meal, as most
teams would recognize, consisted of pasta with red sauce, chicken, steamed
vegetables, salad and bread.
One of the nice
surprises during road trips is seeing friendly faces who have made the trip.
The parents of Brian Stafford, Travis Hallam and Rob Lewis all made the trip to
Northern Iowa, as did former DU ticket office/noonball legend Matt Evans.
Tonight, the family of assistant coach A.J. Kuhle have already found their
seats, while Hallam’s family is reportedly coming in from Mesquite, Texas. Also
making the trip tonight were DU financial guru Dan Vanackeren and Darren
Duplechin, who some also might call a noonball legend.
Random Question: Why
would the Lamar band in Beaumont, Texas, play “Georgia on My Mind” before the
game?
European Update: Joe
Jackson put up an eye-popping 37 points, five boards and a pair of blocks in a
game on Nov. 16. His team is now 3-3, heading into a two-week break.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights – 5
Total Mileage Flown
– 2,635
Total Bus Miles –
321
Total Number of
Hotels – 2
Total Number of
Airports – 4
Total Number of
Airline Delays – 0
Total Number of Bags
Lost – 0
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