December 30th, 11:40 AM:
Today is our second day and it started off great, because our practice time changed so we could sleep in - which almost never happens, so it seems. Our morning was full of sleep and not much activity. Some of the guys woke up before nine to enjoy the free breakfast at the hotel but most didn't wake up. For the guys that ate but not at the hotel, they did so at Jersey Mikes where Coach Willer seemed to think the sandwiches could feed the hunger of big Clark Noonan. Noonan, known for eating massive amounts of food, didn't even get the biggest sized sandwich. Then it was off to Davidson at about 1:45 PM.
We got there noticing all of the buildings were brick. The next thing we noticed was how many seats Davidson's Arena had, Tyler Kelley was one of the first. Our practice was like usual lasting about two hours, starting at 2:30 PM and ending at 4:50 PM. The time after practice was hectic due to the fact we had only forty minutes to get the Charlotte Bobcats arena to attend an NBA game. We got to our locker room in Davidson's arena having to change and shower. Little did we know that the Princeton Women's Basketball Team needed our locker room. So Coach came in after about three minutes of us being in there to tell us we had two minutes to get out and be changed. It was just at the moment some guys just jumped under the water.
Once we got out of there we were off to Charlotte Bobcats - Cleveland Cavilers game, which was awesome. Once we were there the dance team caught the eye of Chinyere "Zoom" Ibezim as he bought an overpriced calendar and made sure he got all of the girls to sign it. The game was a close one which made it fun and entertaining, even though no one was a true fan of either team.
Tyler Kelley made it clear to us at how bad he wanted to get on the jumbotron by getting up and dancing each time the cameras went on the crowd. Finally, in the 3rd quarter Tyler got what he finally wanted and made it on the big screen. This made Bruno Cavallo jealous because he just missed getting on the screen too, and each time like Tyler he would dance when the cameras were looking for people. So at the end of the game there was a drumming act to entertain people as they left. Lots of people stopped to watch, like a few hundred. This is when Bruno took advantage of getting some attention. He found his way to the front of the crowd and just started to dance making everyone around laugh. Soon to follow was Julio Vazquez, who stole the show. He is known to the guys on the team as a dancing and singing legend so he pulled out all his moves. That was really the extent of our night because we have an early start. Not much is going on because tomorrow we change hotels and play our game vs. Davidson and we definitely need our rest.
December 29th, 1:27 PM:
Our first day turned out to be a long one, as it started at 6:00 AM and finally ended at 12:30 AM. The day began with a pre-travel practice that took us to about 9:00 AM, so packing for the trip started the night before. The players and coaches all met down at the Alfond Center on campus, everyone seemed to be pretty tired and ready to pass out on the bus ride to Logan Airport. All of us were really excited about riding on a nice big comfortable coach bus to the airport.
The bus ride did not go as expected, as Tom Ray pulled out one of his many games. This one was called catch phrase, a game that has two teams. This made the bus loud and very competitive but everything was all in good fun. After deciding to stop playing so we wouldn't get sick of the game we fell asleep and relaxed the rest of the way to Boston. We got to Logan airport at about 2:30 PM, where we waited to board our plane at 4:30 PM. While the team waited we played some more catch phrase, this time we had to keep it a little quieter. After we boarded the plane we saw which guys were truly scared of flying: Julio Vazquez and Bruno Cavallo.
The first of our two flights was an hour and ten minutes and brought us to Baltimore at around 5:45 PM. Our layover was two hours. That's when everyone decided to go exploring to see what was around and get food. Quizno's and Chinese food were the two top choices among the guys. Since there wasn't much other than stores selling magazines, drinks, and candy we found an empty gate and all hung out. This led to the third round of catch phrase. By the time our first day ended Anthony Savino, Chinyere "Zoom" Ibezim and Julio Vazquez became masters of the game remembering all the words it gave you to guess. Coach Sanicola sent out one of his mass texts telling us our flight changed to 8:17 PM. Everything went smoothly and we arrived in Charlotte 20 minutes early getting in around 9:30 PM.
We arrived at our hotel, the Hyatt Place at the Charlotte Airport, at 11:10 PM. We got to our rooms to dropped off our luggage and were all shocked at how nice the rooms were. Each room has 42 inch flat screens and big comfortable beds. We closed our night off with a team meeting followed by pizza and sandwiches from a pizza place called Toppers.
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STANDISH, ME – The Saint Joseph's College Basketball teams will be traveling during Christmas recess and a player from each team has agreed to share their experiences on the "Monks Insider" blog.
Freshman forward Nicholas Jobin (Westbrook, ME) has been selected to send blog entries on a daily basis while the men travel to North Carolina to take on NCAA DI opponent Davidson College at the end of the week.
Junior guard Megan McDevitt (Cumberland, ME) will submit daily installments while the Monks travel to Claremont, California, which is located about 30 miles from Los Angeles, where St. Joe's faces off against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer later this week.
The Monks Insider link can be found on the right-hand side of all GOMONKS.com pages and all blog entries will be posted on the respective team pages during the trips.
Be sure to follow your Monks during their highly-anticipated journeys!!
