Australian Tour Diaries: John Turek

Nebraska’s long journey Down Under began on Saturday, Aug. 7, when the Huskers loaded onto a bus at the Devaney Center and left for Omaha at 2:49 p.m. NU boarded its flight to Denver at 5:23 p.m. and took off for San Francisco at 8:07 p.m. The Huskers were able to stay right on schedule as their flight from San Francisco to Sydney pulled away at 11:08 p.m. After more than 24 hours of travel time ? and six on-board movies during the 15-hour flight across the Pacific ? the Huskers landed at 6:13 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 9. (Note: Australia is 15 hours ahead of CST). 

After crossing over the International Date Line and losing a full day because of travel, the Huskers spent Monday morning getting acclimated to their surroundings. Since their plane arrived so early, the Huskers were able to get a tour of the Sydney area before checking in at the hotel at 12:38 p.m. According to senior forward John Turek, the past three days have been a whirl-wind tour, but have also been one of the most exciting times of his life:

“This has been a great trip so far. We’re just a few days in but we already know that we’re going to come away from this trip with so much more knowledge on the court about ourselves and away from the court about us as individuals.  

It was a long, long plane ride, but it wasn’t too bad because I was able to get an exit row seat. It really didn’t seem like a 15-hour plane trip because I slept quite a bit.

Sydney is really a beautiful city. There are a lot of cool places to see, and it’s interesting to see the city layout when we’re driving around to the games or where ever, because there is so much here and it’s in a small space right on the water. A lot of that is why it’s so beautiful in general because it’s right on the water. But it’s winter here, so it’s kind of cold which we expected coming in. It’s not cold like a Nebraska winter, but it’s in the 50s so the water temperature is really pretty cold, and you can’t just run out to the beach and get in. 

We’re really coming together as a team, not just in basketball, but in things outside of the court right now. I really think that’s going to help us in the season because we’re getting to know each other as people more than we would have at home in our “comfort zones.” On the court we’re also getting to know each other better and just trying to improve each day.

Coming into our first game, I thought that these guys were probably the nicest people you were going to meet, but I didn’t expect that it would be so physical. After the first couple trips down the court, I saw how it was going to be called, or not called, and knew we just had to play through it. They were playing basketball to win and we needed to do the same. I think we made adjustments and did that but just came up short.

I think the trip has already really helped with our teamwork on the court. It showed more on offense today, but in general these games are going to help us throughout our whole game. It’s just really fun to be playing right now.”