Jack Farkas - 5/24 Blog

  

For the second straight day, we had a later start than usual. On Sunday, we were able to take the coaches bus to the area for the day's activity.  When I got off the bus the first thing the area reminded me of was NBA 2K, as in the park. There were plenty of basketball courts, that were extremely colorful and full of designs, and near the courts was an arena and a shopping area.  We headed to lunch and had a very similar lunch to the previous meals we had in China, which consisted of duck, lamb, and more. However, this lunch was more focused on the dumplings. After lunch we were given some time to walk around the complex before the start of the basketball games. A group of us went to the Nike store that was nearby and looked through it. The store had some interesting clothes, including a cool LeBron shirt, but nothing that I would end up buying. Once I left the Nike store, I got a smoothie and headed over to the arena. 

 

Once we got to the arena, I found my seat and watched the pregame for the girl's national championship, which was around half-court. My seat had a light up glow stick, that the staff controlled the color of, and came with blow up thundersticks, which you used to clap. The pregame was extremely entertaining, and seemed thoroughly planned out, as it gave us some insight into the team, while also trying to hype the crowd up. The game was extremely close at half time, being very back and forth the whole time. At half time, Dalton and I got up to go look around the arena. We walked around pretty much the entirety arena and found a merchandise shop for the teams that were playing. I ended up getting an Eagles jersey, while Dalton got a Dragon jersey for the other team in the men’s national championship. When we got back, the score had become lopsided, and the game was pretty much over by the end of the third quarter. After which, we met up with a representative of Nike and asked some questions about running the event, and the history of the two teams playing, which informed me that the Eagles had beaten the Dragons a couple of years ago, but there were plenty of Dragons fans present as they were from Beijing. 

During the warm-ups for the game, the Dragons looked considerably taller and had a massive advantage, however the Eagles had a player who couldn’t miss from three, I nicknamed him Kobe, because of his Kobe Grinch shoes that he had on. In the excellent pregame show, they displayed that Kobe averaged over 20 points per game, considerably more than anyone else on either team. The game started out even, as therewas a rule in the first half where the full five on the court would come out at a time. Kobe ran the entire offense and couldn’t miss it. When he was on the court, they'd be winning, and when he was off, he would have to come back next time he was on. Still at half, the eagles led by around 6 points. Kobe played the entire third quarter, and the Eagles started to run away with it as his teammates started to get hot, and he ended the quarter with around 25. However, in the fourth quarter another team started to face guard and double Kobe, which was effective. The dragons forced a late comeback and ended up winning. Heartbroken, I walked around for a little bit, got some food at a nearby restaurant, and then headed back to the hotel with a group of us.