Barnstorming Tour – DeAndre the Giant
As mentioned earlier, DeAndre Thomas is a monster. He’s reportedly slimmed down a little. Regardless of his weight, the guy is a freakin’ Mac truck! He was, by far, Aiden’s favorite player at the scrimmage last night. He should be fun to watch this season.
After I took this picture of the kids with Thomas, Aiden started bouncing around the gym. I don’t know if I’ve seen him that excited about meeting a ball player. Come to think of it, I don’t know if he’s met a major college level ball player before. I know the last Hoosier I’d met in person was Calbert Cheaney – but that’s another post for another time.
The dunk fest – er, Barnstorming Tour – was overall an enjoyable experience. We sat under one of the baskets and it was pretty cool watching the players communicate with eye contact. It was obvious that these guys had been playing together for a while. Going to something like this helped me realize that TV doesn’t really capture everything about the game – you lose perspective on how big these guys actually are. And you miss out on the nuances in body language, such as eye contact, that allow for some of the amazing plays we saw last night.
And Mr. Basketball, Eric Gordon, received a well-deserved standing ovation when he was introduced. It’s going to be fun watching him play, too.
Overall, after watching the scrimmage last night, the near future looks bright for the Hoosiers.
And it’s nice to be back in the land where people prefer to talk college basketball instead of college football.
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