A few weeks ago I emailed a just-graduated Scott Greenman to see if he would be interested in keeping a diary of his upcoming trip to Australia for the Maccabi Games. Here's the first installment. Thanks so much, Scott. Your free membership is in the mail. - JS

June 26:

Hello to everyone in the Princeton Basketball family who is dedicated enough to subscribe to Jon Solomon’s excellent basketball service that is extremely devoted to Princeton Basketball and covering the program in a fair and impartial way (I swear I was not paid to say that, though now that I am no longer an NCAA athlete, it would be legal for me to accept such generosity). Of course, I am still not yet an official part of this website because I have not paid any money and am not considered a “donor”. You would think that there would be some sort of ex-player benefits for this website, but I guess not. I suppose four years of pouring out one's heart and soul to Princeton basketball and being named a first-team unanimous All-Ivy League selection is not good enough to get a free subscription to princetonbasketball.com. But seriously, Jon and I have developed a great relationship over the past few years and he recently asked me to write a diary/summary of the next few weeks of my life, in which I will be participating in a Jewish International basketball tournament in Sydney, Australia, and I willingly accepted.

The team is comprised of mostly current college players as well as a few guys who have graduated within the past year or two. Harris Adler, the Director of Basketball Operations for LaSalle University and one of last year’s assistants (for the team I participated on who played in Israel) is our head coach this year. The main and perhaps more recognizable version of the Maccabi games are held every four years in Israel and are often referred to as the “Jewish Olympics." Last year, three of this year’s teammates (Jeff Horowitz—UNC Wilmington, Ben Jacobson—Tennessee Tech, Seth Hauben—Rochester University and currently playing professionally in Denmark) and I competed on that team—which was coached by Herb Brown (an assistant coach for the Atlanta Hawks). (Sorry for the extensive use of parentheses, I’m just trying to catch everyone up so they’re fully aware of the current situation. Plus, Professor Bressler didn’t really teach me how to write well, so you can blame that on him.)

Last year’s trip to Israel was absolutely amazing, both basketball-wise and simply for the overall experience. This year, the tournament is much smaller, as not nearly as many countries will be participating. It can be viewed as somewhat of a “satellite” tournament (Since this is a Princeton website, I’ll use an analogy to help everyone get a better idea: this year’s Maccabi games are to last year’s as the World Games are to the Olympics. But obviously this tournament garners much more international publicity and respect and means much more than do either the World Games or Olympics).

Whereas last year I entered the games for both the competition just as much as the overall experience that would be had in Israel, I would be lying if I said that about my participation this year. I essentially decided to play this year because of the friendships I developed in Israel with my teammates last year. The three aforementioned players and I formed an amazing bond and kept in touch throughout the season. We made a collective decision last November to enter the Australian games because we really wanted to hang out again and have another great time in an amazing foreign country. So, we entered this year’s training camp with a generally less intense attitude than last year. Don’t get me wrong: we still are focused on and working extremely hard toward winning the gold medal. Practices are still very intense and everyone is competing extremely hard to get better. It’s just that my friends and I from last year are not making this trip for simply basketball related purposes. And I think we’ll just leave it at that.

But moving on to what is happening now. Today is the last day of our five-day training camp, which has been held at the College of the Canyons, located about a half hour outside of Los Angeles, California. We practice Tuesday morning at 7am, and then we will be going to the beach for the rest of the day. It’s a rough life out here. Still, the past five days have been tough, as we’ve been having two-a-day practices, trying to get the players to become familiar with one another and getting used to playing together. Obviously, it’s difficult to get players to gel over a five day period, especially when everyone is coming from a different collegiate basketball system. However, the core group from last year is back and that has made it a lot easier for the team to communicate and play well together. The younger players on the team are picking things up relatively quickly and we older guys (it pains me to say that) have been setting a great example through our work ethic and competitiveness. We’ll have a few more practices when we arrive in Australia and possibly a scrimmage before the actual games commence. Until then, it’s just a matter of making sure everyone is in shape and is used to playing together (as well as playing under the international rules). Obviously, we will be playing international rules, which are basically identical to the NBA rules, minus defensive three seconds but with a trapezoidal lane.

Our flight leaves Wednesday morning at 12am (the 27th), and we arrive in Australia at 7am on the 29th. So you probably will not be hearing from me for a few days. Until then, I hope this letter finds everyone doing well.

Thanks,

Scott Greenman