It’s been a while since my last blog post — and I apologize. But since mid-March the weather in Portugal has been outstanding, so I have been spending a lot of my time outdoors.  The 25-plus degree weather has made perfect beach weather — twice I’ve even braved the cold Atlantic waters! It’s been a nice treat spending the last month outside enjoying the premature Portuguese summer, but my focus has never waned from my purpose — competing, improving and working hard towards a strong regular season finish.

A quick statistical review of our final 5 regular season games.

@ AFC vs. Alges (1)

66-55 LOSS

15 points – 5 rebounds – 3 steals

@ Montijo (8)

80-83 WIN (OT)

10 points – 9 rebounds – 1 block – 3 steals – 3 assists

@ AFC vs. Quinta dos Lombos (4)

80-67 LOSS

15 points – 10 rebounds – 2 steals

@ AFC vs. CAB (6)

91-85 LOSS (OT)

28 points on 13/13 shooting – 8 rebounds – 2 steals

@ Olivais (unranked)

83-75 WIN

20 points – 16 rebounds

Two personal highlights from the past month have been career high statistics in both scoring and rebounding. I had 28 points versus CAB as well as 16 rebounds versus Olivais. It seems like whenever playoffs are approaching I begin to play my best basketball. It’s too bad that it takes me almost an entire season to find my groove, but better late than never I guess!

Our team has forced overtime in two of our last five games. In the overtime loss however, we were leading almost the entire game. In the overtime win we fought back in the 4^th quarter to force extra time. We really struggle to play consistently for an entire 40 minutes — we either have a great first half and build a solid lead but later lose it OR have a slow start and need to dig ourselves out of a big hole in the second half. Besides our inconsistency during games, the overall vibe of our team has really improved. Our tenacity and desire to compete has been the biggest upgrade. It’s evident since the start of the New Year through our ability to keep up with top ranked teams, often losing by only single digits now compared to blow-outs in the first half of the season.

This weekend marks the start of the post season. Ranked 7^th in an 8 team playoff pool, we face #2 ranked Vagos in a best of 3 series. This is the same team that hit 18 of 24 threes against us in a nationally televised game in our gym in early January. Hopefully, their shooters aren’t as hot from behind the arc in the next 2, possibly 3 games. We don’t match up very well with this team – they seem to run on us in transition and we lose confidence in our offensive ability because of that. We have struggled with our on ball defense all season long and Vagos definitely takes advantage of knowing that. The key to our success this weekend is containing their ball handlers, defending ball screens with good rotation, as well as shooting a decent percentage from the field. If we can do this for 40 minutes, while playing in our own gym, then I think we could have a chance to pull off an upset!

Wish us luck!

Matteke Mary

Ola!

It’s crazy to think that my time in Portugal is quickly coming to an end. Already we are beginning another new month and my mid-April departure date keeps creeping closer. Since coming back after Christmas, time has just flown by. I’ve also had some Canadian visitors keeping me company, which creates a much livelier daily routine. We’ve spent lots of time in the downtown core of Porto during the days and nightsshopping, eating and enjoying the nightlife are the primary activities that fill our itinerary. The weather has more than co-operated with sun–filled days of at least +14 degrees. This past week is only the third time we’ve had rain since the New Year.  It’s pretty easy to be motivated to get up everyday and get to work when it’s so beautiful outside… not to mention there’s now snow to deal with!

We finally got our first win of the New Year as well, with a 75-52 road win over Barcelos, where I posted 19 points and 9 rebounds. I think the key to our win was that we played 40 solid minutes as a team. We worked in sync offensively and defensively in such an efficient way that it fueled us with unbelievable motivation. Even our team practices over the last month have been on another level of focus, intensity and passion. It’s great to win, but it’s an even better feeling when you’re proud of the effort of everyone involved.

Our most recent game was against last-place ranked Algueirao. The week leading up to this game was really unorganized because of lack of practice time due to the Carnival holiday.  A regular week consists of four team practices and 4 individual practices but this week was half of that typical workload. The night before game day, our coach warned us not to underestimate our opponent and keep focused on the goal even though we faced some adversity during the past week. Unfortunately, that message must have fallen on deaf ears as we lost 69-70. Trailing by one at half time, we struggled to maintain a defensive consistency and couldn’t contain their 55% field goal percentage. After going 7-7 from the free throw line the game before, I could not convert on 2 free throw attempts with 4 seconds left in the 4th. For me personally, it was a heart breaking loss because I had a great offensive and defensive game putting up 14 points and grabbing 8 rebounds.  I was feeling great the entire game and was confident when I went to the free throw line. Mind over matter I guess because mentally I failed to cash-in on the opportunity to win the game or at least send my team to overtime. Moving on now though, missing a free throw definitely is NOT the end of the world… it’s just the feeling of temporarily failing your job that sucks. But failure is not fatal and it’s the courage to continue that is most admirable. All I know for sure is the next time I get to the line, I am hitting those free throws.

This past weekend was an off weekend and I had the chance to get to Lisbon for two days. Just over 300kms to the south, Lisbonis Portugal’s largest city with a metro population of 2.8 million people. After a 2.5 hour train ride, we arrived in Lisbon and checked into our Hostel. The city was much different from Porto because it thrives on tourism. Porto has much more of a small town feel whereas Lisbon is much more Americanized for tourists; Starbucks, Hard Rock Café, McDonalds and a high end shopping district. It was a great weekend overall and I was excited to tour a new city. I think I may have the travel bug and try to get to a few more European cities before I head back to Napanee.

This weekend we travel to Torres Novas to play a game that we need to win. With our loss to Algueirao, our margin for error has gotten smaller. If we want to make playoffs we need to get at least two more wins. And one of those wins needs to come this Saturday. Wish us luck!

Just a mini update on the life and times of ME!

A few things…

1. We are 0-4 in 2012.

2. In those 4 games I am averaging 11 points, 6 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game.

3. My free throw percentage competes with Shaq’s. But I’m working really hard to improve it!

4. Our twice-weekly shooting practice is paying off for me. Compared to when I started four months ago, my percentages are up across the board.

Paint: 69.1% (That’s an increase of +19.7% since September 2011)

Middle Distance: 61.7% (+7.5%)

3-point: 40.7 (+2.5%)

Free Throw: 81.9% (+9.6%)

5. My family is in the Dominican Republic celebrating the marriage of my brother. I am SO jealous because I want a tan too : ( But sending love to Kevin and his new bride Rachelle <3

6. Our next game is this Sunday against Vagos in another Portuguese Cup game. These games mean nothing in terms of statistics and standings. You qualify to participate in the tournament based on current league standings.

7. It has been 13-16 degrees and sunny here everyday except for a couple since I’ve oame back to Portugal after Christmas at home.  I hope I didn’t just jinx that though :/ (See my picture to the right)

8.  I need you guys to send all of your positive thoughts across the Atlantic so we can get a win this weekend!

Miss you Canada!

xo Matteke Mary

What’s up!?

So here we are… off into the second half of the season.   After having an ‘OK’ start to the season, we are currently sitting in 4^th place in the BBL. Our team has come a very long way and has overcome a ton of obstacles in our path. We are still playing without EJ Harrison and Sterling Davis, our two most veteran players, while others continue to play with nagging injuries.  But our team has no quit – guys have stepped up their play and helped our team stay amongst the top half of the league.  We are looking to get Sterling back in the next few days heading into a hard end of the month.

It’s going to be great playing this weekend after having no games last week, which made room for A LOT of practice over the past twelve days. Personally, I have had a great last month. My numbers are up, and I am one of the top free-throw shooters in the country at 89%. But now is the time for our team to really focus and try and string a few wins together to help us climb back into the hunt for the league championship.

My experience in the UK as a whole has been very good. I have met tremendous people, who I otherwise would never have had a chance to meet.  The culture has definitely grown on me, I have had the chance to indulge in it and that has been the biggest upside. The Scottish accent has grown on me and I have actually started catching myself using some of the slang they use over here in Scotland.

I’ll get back to everyone soon with an update. Thanks for keeping up with me!

Andy

***Note from Slan Sports Management***

Below is excerpt about Andy from a recent Glasgow Rocks fans’ blog:

“You know what you’re going to get from Sterling (save for an uncharacteristic game against the Kings), but in his absence Andy W has really stepped up.  He took a bit longer to find his feet in the league than I expected, but he’s really emerged and shown what a good player he is (and what a great player he can be). He’s tougher than he looks, and did a particularly great lock-down job on Andy Thomson when we played the Eagles and has had progressively better rebounding and scoring numbers throughout the season.

Andy’s a player who might not produce many highlights, but makes the valuable contributions that count – the intangibles, if you will.  (Reaching for my book of American basketball slang it says “he’s a glue-guy”).  Believe me when I say that if Andy doesn’t play well then it’s an uphill battle for the team to win, and he should seriously be considered for team MVP come the end of the season in this form.  Plus his voice just cracks me up.”