LARAMIE, Wyo. – It’s
9:30 a.m., just over six hours away from tipoff, and the Pioneers just rolled
into Arena Auditorium for an early shoot around. As always, the team began the
practice session with dribbling drills, cutting and spinning, while running from
baseline to baseline. After that, it’s on to center court, where the guys stand
in five lines and pass the ball in a star-like formation.
We loaded the bus yesterday afternoon at 4:30, just after
practice. About halfway through the ride, the rain started falling, and by the
time we hit the Wyoming border the snow was coming down. The highway was pretty
slick, based on the handful of accidents we passed, which added about an hour
to a trip that’s normally just over two hours. We woke up today to an inch or
two remaining on the ground, not too bad, but the sky is gray. Someone
mentioned this morning that after such a nice, long autumn winter may be just a
little harder to adapt to this year.
The gray outside is visible through small windows at the top
of Arena Auditorium – or the Double A or the Dome of Doom, both of which I have
heard references to this morning – and the cloudy skies blend in with the dark
brown and Dijon mustard colored seats, separated into seven stripes going up to
the top of the arena. The town of Laramie has been built up quite a bit in the
two years since the team has played here, including a new hotel overlooking the
football stadium and arena.
There have been a few questions about what the team did on
Thanksgiving. With just two days between games, the team needed to prepare for
the Cowboys, but the players started in the morning and were done with plenty
of time to eat turkey and mashed potatoes. On a team with nine players from
Colorado, most of the players could spend the afternoon and evening with their families.
Likewise, the parents of freshmen Brian Stafford and Tyler Thalken traveled to
Denver for a long weekend, so they spent the holiday with his family, as well.
The other guys from out-of-state either had relatives in town or found a
teammate’s family to adopt them for the day.
One of the best parts of playing regional games is that right
after the game, the team will jump back on the bus and head back to Denver. Last
week after the Lamar game was pretty typical of most of our trips. We checked
out of our hotel in Beaumont before heading to the arena, and after the game we
jumped on a bus to Houston, where we checked into another hotel near the
airport. The next morning, we woke up, grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed
to the airport to fly back home. Needless to say, the players and coaches would
rather go home after the games and sleep in their own beds. We are all pleased
that we will head home tonight, weather permitting. According to John
Fitzgerald, DU’s director of basketball operations, Princeton played a game at
Wyoming, when he was working for Joe Scott’s staff there. They flew into Denver
and took a bus to Laramie, but I-80 was closed on their way up, and they were
forced to spend the night in a budget motel in Cheyenne before continuing to the game the following day.
Hopefully it stays fairly clear today, especially since
Denver fans will be hitting the road in a few hours to provide support at the
game this afternoon. A group of fans and cheerleaders are loading up a few packed
busses around noon today. As I said in the last blog, it’s always nice to see
some friendly faces in enemy territory. It should be even nicer to see
bus-loads this afternoon.
Finally, if you did not make the trip to Wyoming, you can
still watch it on The Mountain. Former DU color analyst Mike Evans, who called
action on Pioneer radio broadcasts for six years, will be handling play-by-play
(a late change for Tim Neverett, who was originally scheduled). Working as
color analyst for the broadcast will be Larry Mangino, who spent seven years as
an assistant at Air Force, including four under head coach Joe Scott.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights – 6
Total Mileage Flown
– 3,511
Total Bus Miles –
602
Total Number of
Hotels – 4
Total Number of Different
Airports – 4
Total Number of
Airline Delays – 0
Total Number of Bags
Lost – 0
Total Number of
Waffles in the Shape of a State – 1 (Texas)
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Lamar - 11/22/08
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
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
Friday, November 14, 2008
Northern Iowa - 11/14/08
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - We
are officially 24 hours away from the start of the 2008-09 season, and the team
has arrived to a gray, rainy day in Northern Iowa. It’s the kind of day that
those of us who have spent a lot of time in the Midwest expect from November to
March.
Late yesterday afternoon, the Pioneers departed from DIA, flew through Minneapolis and arrived to the airport in Waterloo, Iowa, just outside of Cedar Falls. When you make enough trips to college towns, you grow accustomed to regional airports in towns you might not expect the airlines to fly to. This one had two gates and a single baggage claim carousel. In case there was a question whether we were in farm country, the airport had a display case devoted entirely to John Deere.
This is not just the first trip of the year but the first college basketball road trip for the majority of the players. Already, though, they seem to be falling into the comfortable routine on the road, and the camaraderie after only a month of practice seems especially good. All of the players and coaches assembled for a late breakfast in the hotel. In classic Midwestern fashion, the hotel offered scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, and a variety of cereals, most of which were likely produced in nearby Cedar Rapids at the General Mills plant. Former player and soon-to-be radio color analyst David Kummer grew up in Cedar Rapids and said he always knew what day it was because he could smell what kind of cereal they were making.
Speaking of Kummer, for the first time since 2003, he is not listed on Denver’s roster. The first thing he’s doing as a former player? He’s planning to drive from Denver to Iowa to watch the Pioneers play. During home games, Kummer will be helping out Mitch Hyder on radio broadcasts.
Right now, the team is practicing in the McLeod Center, a 6,750-seat arena that still has a sparkling newness to it as it enters its third season. It’s connected to the UNI-Dome, which holds UNI football games and used to host basketball games. McLeod offers a much more intimate college basketball experience, and we expect a good crowd tomorrow, as UNI unveils four banners commemorating the Panthers’ NCAA Division I Tournament appearances prior to the game.
After practice, the team will return to the hotel in downtown Waterloo, overlooking the Cedar River. Sandwiches in the hotel and dinner this evening are pretty much the only things on the schedule, allowing the players to rest up for tomorrow’s early game. As Coach Scott said during media day on Tuesday, the fact that DU has practiced every morning at 7 a.m. for the past month should help the team’s preparation for such an early tip.
European Update: In a previous blog, I mentioned a few former DU players who are playing abroad, but I left out Terrence Gordon, who played for the Pioneers from 2004-06. Judging from video proof, Gordon seems to be dominating in Sweden.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights – 2
Total Mileage Flown – 863
Total Hotels – 1
Late yesterday afternoon, the Pioneers departed from DIA, flew through Minneapolis and arrived to the airport in Waterloo, Iowa, just outside of Cedar Falls. When you make enough trips to college towns, you grow accustomed to regional airports in towns you might not expect the airlines to fly to. This one had two gates and a single baggage claim carousel. In case there was a question whether we were in farm country, the airport had a display case devoted entirely to John Deere.
This is not just the first trip of the year but the first college basketball road trip for the majority of the players. Already, though, they seem to be falling into the comfortable routine on the road, and the camaraderie after only a month of practice seems especially good. All of the players and coaches assembled for a late breakfast in the hotel. In classic Midwestern fashion, the hotel offered scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, and a variety of cereals, most of which were likely produced in nearby Cedar Rapids at the General Mills plant. Former player and soon-to-be radio color analyst David Kummer grew up in Cedar Rapids and said he always knew what day it was because he could smell what kind of cereal they were making.
Speaking of Kummer, for the first time since 2003, he is not listed on Denver’s roster. The first thing he’s doing as a former player? He’s planning to drive from Denver to Iowa to watch the Pioneers play. During home games, Kummer will be helping out Mitch Hyder on radio broadcasts.
Right now, the team is practicing in the McLeod Center, a 6,750-seat arena that still has a sparkling newness to it as it enters its third season. It’s connected to the UNI-Dome, which holds UNI football games and used to host basketball games. McLeod offers a much more intimate college basketball experience, and we expect a good crowd tomorrow, as UNI unveils four banners commemorating the Panthers’ NCAA Division I Tournament appearances prior to the game.
After practice, the team will return to the hotel in downtown Waterloo, overlooking the Cedar River. Sandwiches in the hotel and dinner this evening are pretty much the only things on the schedule, allowing the players to rest up for tomorrow’s early game. As Coach Scott said during media day on Tuesday, the fact that DU has practiced every morning at 7 a.m. for the past month should help the team’s preparation for such an early tip.
European Update: In a previous blog, I mentioned a few former DU players who are playing abroad, but I left out Terrence Gordon, who played for the Pioneers from 2004-06. Judging from video proof, Gordon seems to be dominating in Sweden.
Yearly travel totals:
Total Flights – 2
Total Mileage Flown – 863
Total Hotels – 1
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