We are in finals week here at Duke so it has been a busy two weeks for me. I take four classes and only have two exams so I will have more time to study for each exam. We played two games on the road last week. It was rough stepping off the plane into the cold, windy and snowy weather of West Lafayette and Detroit. I thought I had escaped that when I came down to Durham from Philly.

The trip to Purdue was much better than our trip to Michigan. We came out against the Boilermakers playing hard with a lot of intensity. Their crowd serenaded us with the school's fight song on the way into the arena for shootaround that morning. That was a little different then our ACC road trips where fans are more likely to yell at you then sing to you. The pregame atmosphere was the best I'd been a part of as a college player. The stands were full 10 minutes before the tip and their band was pretty good too. We had a great team effort on offense and defense and we controlled the glass while winning by double digits. With the game tipping off around 9pm we didn't get back to Durham until 3 am on Wednesday. We are able to charter our flights so the seats are comfortable and have plenty of leg room. The staff also takes care of us pretty well so I can't complain about our road trips.

Michigan also had a great crowd in our next game. It was our first loss of the season. Michigan played a good game led by Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims, their two best players. We did not match their intensity or energy on both ends of the floor and had a poor shooting game as well. Michigan played a great game and deserved that win. We will rebound and learn from that experience.

We now have 10 days between games to focus on our class work and regain our edge on the court. I have a Psychology and Wolof (African language) exam that I must take care of. I've have had a good semester in the classroom and want to focus on finishing strong. When I break from studying me and Jon Scheyer, my roommate, usually play a few games of NBA Live '09. The three things he does in life are go to school, play basketball and play LIVE. Because of that I only beat him on occasion.

I saw a question from a reader in my last entry and wanted to take a minute to answer that. Jayb2113 wanted to know what it takes to become a walk-on at the Division I level. I would say that you have to be selfless. The walk-ons on our team, Steve Johnson and Jordan Davidson, come into every practice with the mindset of making the other guys better. They know that their own actual time on the court will be very limited so they put their emphasis on helping their teammates. I have found that they are two of the best guys to talk to about our team and myself because they really don't have to worry about how they're playing. They see the team from a different prospective. One that is very good to get advice from. Steve and Jordan really don't get as much credit as they deserve.

Anyway, I am looking forward to getting my exams over with and getting back out on the court on Dec. 17. We all have a pretty bad taste in our mouths after the Michigan game. After we play Asheville on the 17th we head up to NJ for a game with Xavier. I will have a lot of family at that game and then we will have a little break to spend the holidays with our families.