OK well I finally got to a Kinko's to post a report!

Girls beat Iowa Central easily on Tuesday night by about 30 in Fort Dodge. Didn't see the game but it was fairly average from all reports.

Boys played De Moine Area Community College (DMACC) on Tuesday. They were real good, best junior college I have seen. They were quick, strong defensively and could shoot. We started well and were up 19-15 but we had real trouble containing them for the 2nd and 3rd quarters and our movement on offense dried up. We were behind 50-35 at the half and got down by as many as 40 before making a late run in the last 6 minutes to go down by 30. Our first 13 and last 7 minutes were good, the middle 20 were terrible! However we made some adjustments at training yesterday and we will be better next game.

Girls played Kirkwood CC in Cedar Rapids last night. They have been in the top 4 nationally ranked JC's for the last 3 years and they were very good. We were down double figures early, the girls played poorly but still went in to the half down 30-38. We should have been down 20. Gradually we picked up the D and made some big shots and closed to within 4 with 4 to go. Just couldn't get the big stop or basket down the stretch and lost by 8.

Off court highlights of interest both involve Mark Wallis. Mark and three of the girls got on the main court at Venice Beach for some pick up ball in front of a big crowd. The next day Mark and some of the girls got onto the set of The Fast and the Furious 3 and met the cast. The boys just had to make do with riding 16 massive roller coasters at Six Flags. Makes the Royal Show look like a kid's park. (Ed: Who wants to tell Scott that the Royal Show is a kid's park?)

I'm not sure of the girl's next game but the boys play Fri and Sat in Fort Dodge at a tournament. We may have to play DMACC again so we will no doubt be closer and be competitive for longer. In the US we are just after improvement every game and for everyone to contribute in preparation for our big tourney in Spain in December.

Happy thanksgiving from Des Moines, Iowa.

thanks scott, its good to hear that the boys and girls are doing ok, seeing as my son has forgotten how to use a telephone!!!!! how sad, he's obviously have toooooo much fun. i look forward to more reports from you and if you see this, wish the boys good luck from all the folks back home.

ps tell dan that you have to press the buttons to get the phone to work!!

OK here is our next update on the SASI tour.

The boys have played 2 games since the last report. Both games were as part of a tournament in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

The first game was against DMACC who we played a couple of days earlier. Well, if you want to know how we went then refer to my first post. The game followed exactly the same pattern and we lost by 34. They are very good, but we were bitterly disappointed to not do better.

Our next game was last night against Iowa Central. We finally played up to our potential. We burst out to an 8-0 lead on 2 Ingles 3's and and Ingles steal and dunk. Iowa Central fought back and we were 1 down at the half.

In the second we started well but hit some trouble and got behind by as many as 10. However we re-grouped and worked our way back into it. We actually led by 4 with 40 seconds to go but couldn't close it out. Our shot to win in regulation was way off the mark and we went into OT. We just couldn't string together scores and stops. We were 3 down with 20 seconds left and our play to get a 3 ended in a turnover. We eventually lost by 4 however we were much happier with our performance. They were a good team who pushed an exceptionally good team from Colby, KS into double OT the night before.

The girls won last night by 8 against DMACC. They were big and strong. They could not handle our full court pressure. We were 13 up with 3 to go before they hit 3 of the biggest 3's ever seen (30 foot or more), however we steadied to take it out.

Tonight the girls played an NCAA Div 3 school Simpson College. The girls shot very well however defensive lapses kept Simpson in the game. After leading by 10 at the half Simpson closed to within 3, but inexplicably their coach subbed 5 in 5 out and subsequently we went on an immediate run back to double figures which we held for the rest of the game. The final margin was 8.

Off court there is not much to report as there is not much to do except eat, sleep, play and shop. Many good bargains to be had. It is currently snowing in Des Moines. It will be the first sight of snow for many of the kids when they wake up tommorrow morning.

Cheers from Des Moines, Iowa.

Hey thanks Scott it is great to hear the results ..... Casey did tell me but it was 5:30am when she rang!!!! (the Robinson household was also up at that time apparently) ..... and i felt bad waking Neil at 8am!!!!

The kids seem to be having a great time and i can't wait to see the pix - the girl tells me it is gunna snow so you will have to work hard to keep her off skis!!!!

take care - we miss you all - most importantly have a wonderful time

The girls played in Marshalltown last night and won by 20 odd. Apparently the game was fairly average and the girls didn't play that well. That was their last game for the USA leg of the tour. They ended with a 4-1 record against a good schedule.

The boys played Grand View and put up a good performance. Every one of the 12 players contributed positively. We were 2 down at the half and got down by 13 with about 6 to go. However we experimented with our biggest line up and some trap back to zone to cut it to 5 before a phantom travel call on a layup that would have cut it to 3 stopped our momentum. We went down 77-70. Overall a good performance against a good team. They weren't big but they could shoot and they pressed everything all over the court.

We play our last game against Iowa Western tonight. Apparently they are even better than DMACC so I hope we can be competitive. Our schedule has been incredibly difficult but it prepare us well for Spain.

Ola from Spain. It has been interesting to say the least.

The girls lost their first game to Mahagondas by 3. They will be one of the better U/18 teams this year. Apparently we were 12 up with 5 to go and they went nuts from the 3 point line.

The girls then beat a Menorca Senior team by about 20 yesterday. Don´t know any details, sorry!

We lost our last game in the USA to Iowa Western by 88 to 59. This may sound bad but they are ranked 12th in the USA for Div 1 Junior Colleges and had 6 players heading to Div 1 NCAA schools next year. They were very good, and we played well to be competitive. As it turned out 4 of our 5 games were against top 20 nationally ranked Div 1 or 2 junior colleges. A tough schedule by any standards. We ended up pleased with our last 3 games.

Our next game was our main game of the tour against Real Madrid in Coin. To copy one of the all time famous basketball quotes,"I am not allowed to comment on the lousy officiating". Everybody we have met in Spain has been great apart from the 4 referees that have controlled our 2 games. Our Real Madrid game deserved to be a 1 or 2 possession game either way. Real did play better and deserved to win , but we deserved a chance to win, which we never got and lost 79 to 67.

The next day we played against Unicaja and won by about 15 but it should have been 30 to 40 as they were missing some of their best players with their professional team. Again blatantly biased officiating let us get 15 in front and no more. Whenever Unicaja came back they got screwed. It was disgraceful. Coin was one of the nicest places I have been to and the people were great except for the 4 people masquerading as referees!

Anyway we are still having a great time and hope to finish with wins in our last 2 games against Joventut and FC Barcelona.

Buenos dios!

We have just finished our last game of the tour. We played Joventut Badalona yesterday in their professional team gym which holds 12,500 people. Unfortunately the crowd was more like 12 but we still had fun. They were pretty good (a top 8 team in Spain) and we beat them by 5. We were behind by 10 early, up 1 at the half and played better down the stretch. They didn´t expect to lose and they were not happy!

Today against FC Barcelona we lost by 7. We were disappointed to finish the tour on a loss, especially when we were 16 up in the 3rd quarter and had control of the game. They went on a big run and got a 5 point lead that they held to the end. Once again the refereeing was interesting to say the least. We had one referee for the first half and he did a good job. Then at half time another ref turned up. We knew we were in trouble when we saw "The Equalizer" and he didn´t disappoint with some of the worst officiating possible. However it was our inability to cope with the change that was the real problem. To Barcelona´s credit they changed their game style and adapted better to fight back, but we felt that we deserved to win. It just goes to show how tough it is to beat a name team like Real Madrid or FC Barcelona. However we were more than competitive and have guaranteed that they will play us in future.

See you all when we return in a couple of days.