Australian Tour Diaries: Tony Wilbrand

This has really been an eye-opening experience in terms of visiting a similar culture, but yet there are still so many differences. One thing that has impressed me is how friendly everyone is here, even in the big cities like Sydney. The entire society here is really relaxed and fun-loving, but you might as well be when you have such spectacular scenery, both natural and in the architecture, to view every day.

I’ve been pretty interested in trying new things, but I must say that I miss the food back home, both in taste and portion size. The money is also a little different here and is kind of freaky when you first start handling it, and I miss playing video games. Most of all, I miss being in a comfortable setting and seeing my family and fianc?e, although it has been incredible to go through this experience.

On the court, there’s little surprise that I like to bang with people in the middle more, so these games have been great as far as I’m concerned. It’s ideal for us to play people who play like this ? this physical ? because it will help prepare us for Big 12 play. This is what we will see in terms of physicalness, and it actually may be a step down from here.

I’ve read a lot about jet lag. Experiencing it is hard to adapt at first, but your body will adapt and it hasn’t seemed to affect us in playing basketball. It will be interesting to see how everyone does on the way back and how well everyone adapts back to their normal schedule.

Since we’ve been in Cairns, it’s been great seeing the sights. We’ve only really had a couple days off since we got to Australia, so it was nice that today we were able to get to the Great Barrier Reef and do a little snorkeling. That was something that was pretty high on my list of things to do in my life, and I can now cross it off, just like crossing off traveling to a foreign country.

It’s been a great time but it’s also been a long 10 days since we left, and I can’t wait to get home this weekend.