Foot Locker Elite Classic - Day 1

(I had planned to blog daily but my schedule over the last week just didn't permit)

I woke up early on Tuesday morning and since I hadn't drawn the curtains in my room I could see there was a major storm happening outside. It was black and there were flashes of lightening ... I thought to myself its a good thing basketball is played indoors!

I went downstairs to hoe in to the buffet but a few minutes in to it I got a call from JVG advising that everything was going to shit and we needed to meet in one of the guys rooms to get things sorted. It turns out that the storm had been going most of the night and the Adelaide Dome was without power. This wasn't ideal as we had guys out at the stadium from 6am and they had a lot to get organised before tip-off.

There was a large possibility that we were going to need to push back the live starting time as things weren't going to be ready but thanks to all hands on deck and some frantic last minute work by everyone, somehow we got it all done and started on time. This was amazing to everyone concerned as 2 or 3 times JVG had called One to advise we would likely not be ready.

Day 1 started with a VERY small crowd which was disappointing but not overly surprising considering the politics we had faced in the lead-up to the event not to mention the timing of the games and it being shown live on One.

None of the games on day 1 were overly exciting/close and the only upset came when the Reef knocked off the Pythons in the final game of the day. We didn't give the Reef much chance of doing well in this tournament but they played hard and knocked off the more fancied Pythons.

It was a stressful day with a lot of running around behind the scenes as people learned their roles and figured out what needed to be done.

Thanks to Kevin Brooks for organising a restaurant discount for all involved in the tournament at a restaurant called Scoozi's. It would quickly become the dinner option of choice for everyone, we were well looked after and the food was great value.