May 12, 2007

Day 5 in Argentina for the SCORE International basketball team was the most interesting thus far. Their travels brought us to the capital, Buenos Aires, where they checked into a five-star hotel in what is considered the “Times Square” of Argentina. Traveling by double-decker bus, it took the team close to two hours to get through traffic to arrive at the gym 20 minutes before tip-off. Given that the bus was of the two-story variety, there were several occasions that trees and power lines nearly made it a convertible.

When SCORE finally arrived, they found the opposing teams interesting. Their starting center was huge at 6’7 275lb. Sporting a mowhawk and frosted tips in his curly hair, he looked more ready for the WWE than a basketball game. The shooting guard then walked in with his wife and three kids, ages 5, 10 and 16. Thinking he was the old enough to be the coach, it shocked us to see him in the starting lineup.

The US team built a 26 point lead in three quarters, but foul trouble caused the team to scramble. “I tried to explain to the refs that they needed to call the game fairly, but since he didn’t understand English he kept saying something about guacamole and taco’s.” said JeJuan Brown of Vanderbilt.

The SCORE team ended up winning the game 112-99 behind Phil Turner’s game high 26 points. Carolina’s Bryce Sheldon scored 17 points and added seven rebounds. Chad Gray had seven points and Carter added seven points and seven rebounds.

Name Pts Rebs Sts Asts Blks

Phil Turner 26 5 4 2 1

Bryce Sheldon 17 7 1 6 0

Chad Gray 7 3 0 0 1

David Potter 19 4 0 1 0

Mitchell Carter 7 7 0 1 2

Jermaine Beal 13 2 0 3 0

Jarvis Varnado 2 4 0 0 3

JeJuan Brown 9 7 0 2 0

David Huertas 17 2 2 2 0

The teams final game will be tomorrow night before returning back to the States on Monday morning.