Crimson and Gold Connection; Lane Lord

Welcome to the Crimson and Gold Connection. I'm Destin Triber and today's special guests are Well, they had an excellent trip a very cool trip the USA division to Brazil tour. Welcome to the show Coach Lane Lord of the pit pit States women's basketball team and two of our tour for pit state stars page long What's okay? The bird is thank you. I'm having us. Okay, you guys got to go on a I was gonna say overseas is not overseas. It's down south south America All the way to to Rio and different parts of Brazil It's the Brazil it's the USA division to Brazil tour and you were part of a team a 10 team group from around division two the best players in the nation and what tells about the trip? Well the the trip started Our organizer that with USA basketball is Ron Smith and this is the second tour that they've had with the organization and he put together a list of probably the 50 best players in division two we narrowed that down to 10 He asked me to be the head coach and I said only if I can bring two of my players and I

Would have done it anyway, but it was it was obviously a blast to have two of our best players go with us and and Represent in Pittsburgh state and in our country, but that's kind of how the the team was formed and And then we went to Orlando for two days and practiced and then flew to San Paulo, Brazil and I'll let the girls talk about what we did when we got to San Paulo First of all, I told him that I'd do it as long as coach Lord wasn't the coach, but that Now I'm just kidding We we got there and we played Our first game we got I think into the airport at around six no, I don't six in the morning took a long bus ride to Um where we played kind of hung out for a few hours eight and then we played I mean it felt like pretty soon our first game was pretty soon right and we got there so 10 hour flight Oh, wow flew through the night Yeah, so your legs aren't exactly under you. You're in a new environment a whole different. I mean Whole different kind of environment as far as basketball goes and um, I thought as as a team we came together so quickly

We began playing Playing wall together Very quickly, but you know, we took our first loss that first night Um, but we definitely showed improvement and bounce back and won our next three games So that was awesome. Yeah three and one of this trip. That's awesome And I mean how many practice you had like 48 hours to practice basically So how many practice did you actually get to do before you actually played your first game? We really just had two practices. Oh, and it was You know, of course, Michaela and Paige they didn't know everything that we wanted to do Trying to teach these other eight was pretty tough in two days But that like Michaela said they did come together that first half of the first game. I think Just to tell you who we play we played the 20 and under national team that won the world championships the year before a really talented team And their coach was the Brazilian Olympic head coach. Oh, wow So pretty neat experience for us. They came out and really jumped on us early and then I was so physical Different rules 24 second shot clock. It's almost like the NBA as far as rules go Mm-hmm, and took a swallow to adjust and I thought second half we played great

And I think we lost my four four we fought back last but we fought all the way back and did a great job Michaela was on Brazilian TV. She did us and scoring At like 20 points could understand one word the guy said during the interview But yeah, interviewed me in Portuguese. So that was tough. Just nod your head and smile. Yeah a little out of my comfort zone Paige, why don't you talk about the what we did on the second day we we traveled to play that protein member Um with the were paylay played soccer and oh, yeah the next morning I mean, we kind of had a quick turnaround to we had dinner late that night had to get back to the hotel and just get some rest and then we were up early in the next morning and On the road probably like 45 minutes to an hour to play a pro team and there was a really cool soccer stadium As well that pros had played on it was kind of old now, but For you old people paylay played there back in the day For your young people like you I don't know what he is, but famous soccer player. Sorry. Okay, okay, but

Anyways, um, we definitely came out a lot stronger that game and more like as a team since we had one game under our belt And we ended up winning that one. It was a close one until the end if I remember I think we won by what two Mm-hmm two points in I mean just the physicality of it I think we got more used to it that game and kind of started to fight back a little bit more than we did the first game But it was definitely a good experience get our first one under our belt and the intro grown women they weren't I mean they were Yeah, you know, we're all we're all 21-22 these girls are 24-20. Oh, okay And they're just physically their body just so strong. Yeah, and their teams they actually played together professionally So they played together for a long time while you guys had new couple of days to get ready if that Yeah, and it's not in my double-a officials over there Definitely didn't have the home court advantage on it But now they the pro there's three tiers of the pro league over there and this was a second

The team we played second was a second tier pro team So very talented that a girl that scored 39 honest. Oh, wow. We still were able to beat him So it was a good game. Oh, yeah, well, we got a few more minutes here I want to talk about the actual experience, you know everything you saw and and some of the you know the local culture Over in Brazil well after our third our third game We had a day in between and we're just the meant there was a men's team that played as well representing the USA We watched them play and then the third day we went to another town june jai and And did a basketball camp for the for the youth there was like 7th and 8th graders 6th and 8th graders and they just love being a part of You know the United people from the United States want to know everything about us and and the girls did a great job The whole team of interacting with the with the players and You know the girls can talk about that real quick and then we drove to Rio, which is really the fun You know the funnest the best part of the trip because we stayed on the beach for four days and I had to play one game. Oh, yeah I think the whole experience of just the way that the kids and the fans over there took us in was just

Very very cool after games all the kids would come up and want to talk to us take pictures with us Add us on Twitter Instagram and stuff and then Actually the other players from the other team would come talk to us too and want to like trade jerseys or trade USA stuff, so that was Very cool to experience that part of it kind of like the things you see in the Olympics a lot and speaking of that You kind of got to see the makings of this summer's Olympics and Rio de Janeiro Yeah, I think I told Paige a couple times we go to restaurants and people would break their next trying to stare at us walking in I leaned over and told Paige a few times. I'm pretty sure they think we're on the Olympic team Just coming over coming over early for a visit But that was like what Paige talked about the people I mean just embracing after a game. It was kind of overwhelming honestly after the first game We went and sat and just like swarmed by people just by kid, you know kids 13 and under that just you know want to have a conversation with you

There was a couple boys that came up that just literally wanted to like, you know Know where I went to school what it was like Just what our life was back. Yeah, what life was like in The United States and so that was really cool for us to get to share that with them I'm very cool to do really things we got to see while we're in Rio. We stayed on the beach in Rio. They were making the On summer Olympic volleyball stadium Which was right by our hotel their way behind is gonna be tough for them But then we got to go see the Christ the Redeemer statue very famous and then Sugarloaf mountain, which is another historical, you know marker monument or whatever Those two experiences were great and Um really the really the whole time in Rio was outstanding All right, well sound sound like he had an awesome time. I'm sure you go back in a heartbeat um We didn't get to Zika virus either That's a success that's a success so right and of course uh I'm winning three three out of four games. That's awesome head coach lane lord

Paige Lungwitz and Michaela Burgess. It's thank you so much for coming in today Um and talking about this amazing trip you had thank you so much Thank you for having me. Thank you