Day 12 - Friday 7 January

Another wonderful day in paradise!!

Today saw the start of the self-drive vans - which meant a little preparation was necessary including a practice spin around the car park for some of our drivers! We let the boys stay in bed until 8.45, and aimed to get the group organised by 9.45, getting away not long after, and we headed for Duke University. Our first view of the Uni was the Chapel - a most imposing piece of architecture - and then we headed toward the visitors car park so that we could have a closer look around.
We were privileged to be able to walk into the Chapel and were in awe of the huge interior, magnificent pipe organ and beautiful stained glass windows. From there we walked along a pathway through the arches, past some of the student accommodation toward the student recreation center. One of the friendly staff let us in to look around at the three storey facility which included basketball courts, pools and a great gym. She then took us all through the original basketball stadium into Cameron Indoor Stadium, the home of Duke Basketball. The Duke men were holding a closed practice session but many of us got a sneek peak through the edge of the curtain! We enjoyed looking at the excellent sporting museum and headed over to the student center where many did some damage to their bank accounts in the Duke clothing store. Duke is only a small uni of 6000 undergraduates and about the same number of gradulates studying - they all pay around $50,000 a year for this privilege. 30,000 applications were received for the 1,700 places in the next academic year!
From there we drove to Best Buy, a huge electronics shop, where many purchased cameras, laptops and headphones just to name a few items, and also visited a huge sporting store named Dick's. After this quick shopping stop it was off on a short drive (made just a little longer when Richard missed two turns off the freeway meaning we double backed twice) to Wake Crossroads Baptist Church for our last games of the tour against the Raleigh Hawks.
The Freshman played first, and got off to a strong start before the Hawks adjusted and worked their way back. It was fantastic to watch some of our 'rookies' like Nick Duncan, Ryan Williams and Josh Kieser play really well, and combine with the strong play of Seamus O'Sullivan, Jordan Swepson and Nelson Larkins. The inside presence of Michael Cosh really helped with rebounds as well. Final score was 41 - 37 - a great way for the young men to finish their play on the tour.
The Junior Varsity side matched up well against the Hawks and, at times, showed their strength in defence and offensive skills. It was great to see Nelson Larkins able to step up and play at this level - he showed great poise on the court. Alexa Boardman struggled with some questionable refereeing calls, as did Reid. Micheal Moore continued his excellent play on tour, top scoring with 27, and Matt VonWilpert enjoyed his best game in the US. We ran out winners 68 to 56 after being up be over 20 at times.
The Varsity side were primed, looking for their first win, but struggled to turn this thought into good defence on the court early. A quick time out after only 4 minutes to remind the boys why defence wins games (I love the rule where you can call a time out whenever you have the ball) meant we turned things around and took a slim lead into quarter time. The second quarter belonged to us, and we began to play disciplined offence as well as strong man-to-man defence. However, it was a zone press which made the difference and took away any chance from the opposition - us running away winners 74 to 36. Great rebounding and running of the floor came from Brett Cronan, excellent steals from Dan Affleck and it was great to see both Micheal Moore and Alex Boardman step up to this level and play so well.
Our hosts provided us with a pizza dinner following the game and we mixed with their community for nearly and hour, before heading back to the hotel at around 11pm.