Hi there again, we're up in the UP (Upper Peninsula) for our last two road games of the regular season. We play Michigan Tech tonight, and Northern Michigan on Saturday.

   Being a college athlete has its ups and downs, many more ups than downs being on the #1 team in the nation. One big down on our regular season is the dreaded trip to, well, Canada I like to say. You can't go up to much farther than where we are right now! We had a 13 hour bus ride with players that are 6'5'' to 6'9'' that we left for at 5am in the morning--Oh the things we do for basketball!

    Not many people are blessed enough to be a collegiate ahtlete, and not many people know what goes into being. In this post I'm going to try and describe the typical road trip for a college athlete.

    There are so many things a player needs to do before even thinking about the trip itself. First, a player must inform all his/her professors that he/she will not be in class for the dates of the games. This week, we left Wednesday at 5am, so I will not be able to attend any of my Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday classes. I had to go to each teacher's office and inform them that I will not be in class and why. I am a senior, and basketball is pretty big here so most teachers are aware of the traveling and game days and normally are very cooperative! 

   After the teachers know, they give you all the work you will miss for those games. Meaning if a test is that week, you have to come in and schedule it in the testing center. Most of the time teachers do not like giving test to students after the actual class has taken it so students can not cheat. So here and there we have to get a head in class and take the test before we leave! That gets a little frustrating sometimes.

   Another thing that is overlooked is packing for the trip. When going out of state you can not forget anything or you will be out of luck. It isn't like high school where the coach makes sure you have your shoes, jerseys, warm-ups, ect... If you forget something it's your butt!

   When packing for a 13 hour drive and a trip that will last 4 to 5 days, you need to bring a lot of items. For instance, we had practice yesterday, a shoot around today, game tonight, practice tomorrow, shoot around Saturday, and game Saturday night. On average, players wear 2 pairs of socks for each event, so if we have practice a player would wear 2 pairs of socks, go to the hotel shower and get in clean clothes. All those socks and under wear adds up! This trip alone I'll go though 13 to 15 pairs of socks with all the showering, practicing, and playing. It is important to bring a lot of clean clothes, on the way back I like to get comfortable and take my shoes off, if you have on socks that you've worn and sweating in for the last 4 days, it can smell pretty bad let me tell you. That goes along with under wear, under shirts, practice gear, towels, etc...

   You might say just wash them but normally our stuff doesn't get washed while we're gone. If you think about it, it'd be tough. We are in hotels that MIGHT have a laundry room, but the washers are made for familys, not a team that consists of 15-20 people who all have dirty clothes. The washers and dryers normally aren't free so it adds up we all.

    It's hard to stay mentally focused on road trips, there are so many distractions. I'll start with the 13 hour bus ride we took yesterday. After riding for that long it's tough to jump into a competitive environment and perform at your best. It's tough on a person physically and mentally to travel long distances for basketball games. It presents a challenge, and the home team here knows that. They are known for "sneaking" wins out of teams up here. They should have one of those Verizon wireless commercials done here, you know, the "dead zone" commericals. When we come here there's nothing but snow, ice, cold, a college, and a frozen lake. It's hard to be mentally ready to walk into an environment where you see no familar faces in the stands, there's no energy or hype for you as a player to feed off of. You have to make you own, for some teams that can be difficult, and the reason why it's so hard to come up here and win.

    Phyiscally, it can be a little draining as well. We go from practice, to shootaround, to practice, back on the bus, then to another hotel, it can in fact be a little demand on one's body.

   Don't get me wrong, that is what makes this game so fun. Seeing a challenge and handling it in the right way. There aren't any fans to help us along, so we have to be more focused, and more together than any other time. We have to feed off each other and build our own momentum. That is why this team is so special, like every team we have our bad games and bad moments, but we can adjust on the fly and do what it takes to accomplish the goal at hand.

   Another thing with road trips that I love is eating. We eat 3 to 4 times a day and always at the nicest places in town. For some reason, our coaches love Bob Evan's, I think I could tell you everything on the menu there, but we get treated to other places as well. It's a lot fun going from hotel to hotel, and resturant to restaurant on these road trips.

   Another part of traveling and college athletics one might not realize is the closeness of the players and coaches. I'm sure everyone's heard the saying, "we are a family," or something along those lines. We in fact do build unique relationships, after being with your team for so long, doing so many different things such as going to eat and sharing hotel rooms, it's obvious close relationships get built. Not only that, there are times where you lay all the trust in the world on another player's instinct decision during a game. Whether or not it's a switch that could cause a mismatch, passing up an open shot to create one for your teammate, or throwing a lob pass to a player to catch it and flush it down. There is so much trust between the players and coaches, I don't think a lot of people realize that. Trust is everything in basketball, without, I don't believe much success can be made.

    I got a little off track there, so this is a typical day or days for our road trips here at Findlay.

   Thursday-- 

         Leave for MTU-         5am

         Arrive at MTU-          6pm

         Dinner at                 6:30pm

         Practice at MTU -     8pm

         Lights out-               Midnight

         Wake up/Breakfast   8am

         Scouting report-        10am

         Shoot around-           11am

         Pregame meal          3pm

          depart for womens game 5:30

        game time-                 730pm

         back to hotel, we either go out somewhere, or order pizza and wings depending on the time and how the players feel.

        Friday-- 

     wake up breakfast    8am

     depart for NMU-       10 am

     arrive around             12pm

     lunch                        1pm

     scouting report           4pm

     practice-                    5pm

     On these road trips, we normally have something planned for Friday night to kill time and get out of the hotel rooms. So we normally eat somewhere really nice, and then go out to the movies, all on our boosters and atheltic department ofcourse!

    dinnner/movie/mall   6pm

   lights out-                 12pm

Saturday--

     wake up-           8am

    shoot around      10am

    Then com back to the hotel, shower, use another pair of socks ( ha ha), relax a little and catch up on the world of sports with sportscenter.

    depart for for womens game-- 12:55

   game time                              3

   That schedule is pretty hectic, but that's a typical two game road trip for us.

It's getting down to the end of my season year, time truly does fly! Live in the moment! The season is coming to end, but only to start something so much more, the post season, march madness, the play offs, whatever you call it! This team is very focused on what it wants to accomplish. We understand what roles we need to take to accomplish them, and work harder everyday to do just that. I'm sure I'll have some time tomorrow to jump on here and write a little something, I'm developing quite a fan base from what I've heard. Wish us luck, talk to you tomorrow!

   

     It was an oreo-like weekend in the friendly confines of Croy Gymnasium. We host two teams this weekend, Grand Valley State and Ferris State. On Thursday we hosted GVSU and had a "white-out" game. On Saturday we played Ferris State and had a "black-out" game. I know it's not March but there was nothing but Madness in Findlay this past weekend. People walking through campus all day Saturday getting there free black t-shirts to wear to the game, lines down the street, it's amazing how much support we have in this city. The fans love us and we adore them.
     Now back to business, we are currently 20-0 this year with a 13-0 mark in the GLIAC, sitting atop the GLIAC and nation. Being on top always has its ups and downs, but the ups definetly out weight the downs in my book. Everyone says that we have a bulls-eye on our backs, which may be true, but coming out of the locker room at game-time, our opponents have the target on there heads and we are locked in. We are #1, and everyone wants to take us down so they can be the best. Every game we get every one's best effort, so they can prove they are a good team, or better than us. We get the special defenses, the hard fouls, the special nights on away games so the oppnent can have that extra advantage with their home crowd to try and get in our heads and distract us mentally. "Where am I going with this?" you might add, but we get everyone's best efforts every night, but the thing people don't realize is that we come out everynight and everygame to prove that we are #1 and that this team is hungry. We want to prove that hard work pays off, we work so hard in practice that our practices seem like games sometimes. It's so competitive and physical, every single player on this team hates losing, even if it's a simple rebounding drill at the end of practice. I believe that is why we are in the situation we are in. Everyone plays bad games throughout the year, individually and as a team. The good teams are the teams that can find a way to "snuff" out a win on the road while playing a bad game. I believe the atmosphere out coaches force in practice is the reason why we close games with a win. We have for sure had our bad games, but we always do what it takes to get the win.
     On a lighter note, we play Northwood and Wayne State this week, both being home games. It should be a great weekend of basketball, Preseason Player of the year in basically every thing a player can be nominated for is really proving that he is an elite player. He amazes me sometimes with the type of focus he has during games. He's locked in and we follow right behind him. Josh can really take over a game at any point, and being surrounded by the arsenal of players that he is, teams can not put as much effort in stopping just one player. He has been playing great, on another level actually the last 5 or 6 games. He's been player of the week for I believe the last 16 months, (ha ha). Well maybe just the 4 or 5 times this year.
      One thing about the end of the year and post season starting up is the practice times. When the regular season's end approaches, our practices are much shorter, definetly appreciated by us "old heads." The time of practice may be cut, but the intensity of practice increases dramatically. Coach believes if the practices is short, we as players should be able to take every play of every possession in every practice at100%. Which they normally are, because if they are not Coach Niekamp has his own way of letting us know.
   I haven't been updated this as often as I want to, so from here on out I will post a little something a couple times a week.
     Well, like the good student I am, I need to study! Coach Ernst is probably checking on my where abouts now!! Talk to you soon.

Hello, my name is Morgan Lewis, this is my first of many blog entrys during the remainder of this 2008-2009 basketball season. I will start off with a short introduction, I am a senior at the University of Findlay, located in Findlay, Ohio. I am originally from Painesville, Ohio, which is about 20 minutes east of Cleveland. I attended Thomas W. Harvey High School, I excelled in football, basketball, and track there.

     I am a starting guard/forward for the #1 ranked team in the Division II nation. We are a very experienced, athletic, verteran, and determined team. We are a successful program, I believe coaching is by far the most important reason for our team successful. On another note, we are a hungry, determined, passionate and close team on and off the court. We have all been friends for years now, living with each other and doing anything and everything together. The attitude we bring to our opponents is amazing. We show the upmost respect off the court, but between those lines for those 40 minutes it's like war for us.

   A little bit about this Findlay Oilers since this is my first post. We are currently ranked #1 in the nation, we have a verteran starting line up that consists of 3 seniors, a junior, and a sophmore. The thing that seperates us is our depth. Our bench is a very talented group of young, but experienced players. There are also a hand full of juniors and seniors coming off our bench as well. Our starting forward, Josh Bostic is the National Pre-Season player of the year, along with the GLIAC pre season player of the year. Our point guard Marcus Parker was a freshman All American, and defensive 1st team each year. We have arguably the most athletic big man in our conference in Lee Roberts. We also have some sharp shooting, dead eye 2 guards with Nate Hyde and Tyler Evans. With great energy coming off the bench like we have, is another reason for our success. We have started out this year 10-0 and remaining #1 in the country. We travel to Wayne State Thursday, which is always a fun game. They always have a decent turn out of fans. Last year, Wayne State used a "Black Out" game, meaning everyone wore black, to try and take a mental advantage over us before the game. I believe we like things like that, going on the road already is a challenge we take upon ourselves. We understand going to another team's gym is more of a challenge than most think. We must create our own energy, feed off their fans in a postive way. I believe we as a team understand this challenge and with help from the coaches, figure out ways to face the challenges and overcome them. Either way, it will be a great game, Wayne State brings a lot of energy and has a fast, uptempo pace that we fit right into. 

    I will post the details on the game next week, hope everything enjoyed! Talk to you soon!