Indiana University Athletics
Valentin's Second Adventure of the Summer
9/7/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Sept. 7, 2005
After traveling to Holland and Belgium earlier in the summer with the Big Ten Foreign Tour, Indiana senior Cyndi Valentin has embarked on another trip to play international basketball. This time, the 5-8 guard is headed to the Dominican Republic to compete in the FIBA Americas Championships with the Puerto Rican National Team, which start Sept 14. Prior to their arrival in the Dominican Republic, Valentin and her team stopped in Canada to play exhibition games. Below is her first diary entry for IUHOOSIERS.com:
We got here on Sunday, Sept. 4 around 4 pm and we drove about an hour outside of Toronto, to a city called Kitchener. We got to the hotel and relaxed for a little bit then we had practice at 7pm. We were tired but it didn't matter, We did a lot of running in the beginning of practice and then we did a lot of drills after that.
After practice we went back to the hotel and just relaxed. Then a couple of us got hungry so we tried to go to Wendy's across the street from the hotel. It was 11:45 and we thought if we hustled we could get something, but we forgot there was only drive through open. One of the girls on my team tried to knock on the drive through window to see if we could order really quick since they were closing, but when she knocked they totally ignored her, didn't even turn to look at the window. It was so funny, because she was getting angry that they were ignoring her so she knocked more. Finally we left and went to the gas station.
On Monday we had practice early around 8:30 am and it was another running day. We did a lot of drills too. After practice we went to eat lunch at this place called Kelsey. It was really good; it's kind of like O'charley's. Then we had another practice on 3pm and that was about two hours. It was more of a drill practice, learning the plays and defense. After that we showered and went to dinner.
The Canadian team actually pays for our dinner so we just go to a restaurant and they have the food ready for us. It's nice because it doesn't take that long. After that, most of the team went to Niagara Falls for the night, but me and another girl stayed at the hotel. I actually got some of my homework done.
Today was kind of a chill day. We had a walk through at 11:45 am and then the Canadian team got us a catered lunch to the gym and we ate there. We went back to the hotel to rest and then played Canada at 7:30 pm. They ended up beating us by 20 or so points. Then we ate a chicken salad for dinner and came back to the hotel. We do the same thing tomorrow. I will talk to you later!!
