Anyhoo, I thought I'd start with a quick summary of my basketball career in Japan. During a party with some baseball folk, they mentioned that they also played basketball for the town team and since I'm tall they invited me to a practice. Apparently the practice went well because they kept inviting me back all throughout October and November.
Also I think it's worth noting that there is no indoor heating for the gyms, so the basketball courts were always around 0 degrees and it was common to practice in sweat pants and sweat shirts for the entire time.
So they invite me to a tournament in December and the games reminded me why I hate basketball games. Playing with friends and practicing is awesome, but I feel like basketball rewards dirty play way too much. It's the only sport where you can sit there and try now to foul but still get called for tons of fouls.
Anyhoo, the first game they put this guy on me who clearly has been playing basketball for his entire life. He knew every trick in the book. Whenever there was a rebound opportunity, he'd do this weird arm wrap thing where he wrapped his arm around mine until we were in a elbow/elbow tie, kind of like how you walk down the isle for a wedding or something, and then he's jerk his arm down (and mine with it) right as I was about to jump, but from the ref's point of view, it looked like I was leaning on him and preventing him from jumping so that really got on my nerves and I played terrible the whole game. So the game actually really came down to the wire. We were down by 7 with 4 minutes to go. But we took a time out at the 4 minute mark, then quickly went on a 10-0 run to go up by 3 with a few seconds to go. The other team had a pretty good look at a 3 pointer at the buzzer to tie it up but it was a little short.
Anyhoo, this guy:
He's about my height and twice as fast and much better at shooting, he pretty much dominated. We actually won pretty easily, but I was reminded why I don't like basketball too much.
The next two games didn't have much to note, pretty standard games. Not much dirty plays and lots of easy rebounds. The games weren't very close. We end up 3-0 and winning the championship. We also got a really nice trophy;
