Basketball

Manu Ginobli

Yesterday, NYU in Buenos Aires got a unique chance to play against a club basketball team in the barrio Quilmes (Shares a name with Argentina's most famous beer). Quilmes is a suburban neighborhood outside of Buenos Aires that is known for its hospitality and middle to upper class homes. In Quilmes, there is a recreations center called Club Bertelli Athletico where we were invited to play their team in basketball. We arrived and there was almost no one there. We began to shoot around and eventually, more people started pilling in. The NYU team consisted of six guys and six girls. The team as a whole was not very good. Three of the six guys did not really play basketball. The other three including me played on a regular basis but that was not enough. The first quarter started out actually pretty close. We started out with a two-three zone, and they started with man to man defense. Their man to man defense was tough, but they were awfully confused by our two-three zone. We got a few quick points by dumping the ball into our big men, while they stayed in the game by going three for four from the three point line. The first quarter ended with NYU down one. The score was fifteen to sixteen. The second quarter was when things started going down hill. The first four minutes were fine. Then my team started loosing its wind. It happened slowly like a snowball. The other team started getting fast break points left and right. Even when we managed to score, they were getting fast break points off of that which is basically unheard of in basketball. By the end of the second quarter, we were down big. In the third quarter, we allowed the girls to play. This of course did not improve the level of play, but rather decreased it. The other team played their less good players, but that did not matter much. The gap between scores started to grow out of control. I think the other team was up twenty points after the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, my team started to get their wind back and both teams had the same amount of points in the fourth quarter. After the game, both teams came together for pizza and soda. It was super good. We had corn pizza, tomato pizza, and onion and cheese pizza. My favorite was the corn pizza. We discussed different styles of basketball over the food, and was all in all a good time.