Kyle and Casey review winter break, latest games
What’s up Duke fans? It’s been a while since we have talked with you guys, but since we’ve gotten back from our time at home we have been really busy! Before we talk about our recent games, here’s a recap of our winter breaks:
CASEY: While I was home for break I got to spend a lot of time with my family and friends back in New Jersey, eat a lot of good home-cooked food, and basically just relax. I also went back to check out my high school team play a game versus one of our rivals which was really fun. Even though it was only a few days, it was really, really nice to get to spend the holidays with my friends and family.
KYLE: After our win over Gonzaga my parents and I were supposed to fly out of New York the next day and go home for the holidays. To make a long story short our flight got canceled and our only option to get back to Oregon was to drive to Chicago so we could fly out of there. The drive from New York to Chicago was about a 13-hour adventure, and my dad drove the entire way. Once we got into Chicago around 4 AM the Scheyer family was kind enough to let us crash in their wonderful home. It was a long trip to get back home for Christmas but we made it, and it was such a great time to be home and see my family. While I was home I went to watch my brother E.J. play Idaho St. at the University of Oregon. E.J. is just a freshmen and it was fun for me to watch him play. As his older brother having already experienced freshman year, I could relate to what he was doing out on the court. Being home was a quick trip but I enjoyed every moment of it.
We got back to school on the 26th and everyone was definitely rejuvenated from their time at home. We played Long Beach State and Penn as our last games in 2009, and then got our first ACC win against Clemson. We got back to Durham after our trip to Chicago early on Thursday morning. Iowa State was a really good team and playing at the United Center was awesome! We always love playing in the NBA arenas and seeing all the great Duke fans in different cities too. We got another solid win, and it was really cool for Jon and Coach to come back to Chicago and for us to see all of the friends and family that were there to support them and our whole team. Lance had another awesome game, and right now he is our pick for mid-season Defensive Player of the Year. We’ve had a busy week and a half since getting back from Winter Break, and we have won four games, with one more game Saturday at Georgia Tech before school starts up. It’s been a great ride so far and we are looking forward to the New Year because what a great new year it is going to be!
Before we go, here are the S&P 1253’s latest BUYS and SELLS:
BUYS: New Jersey’s famous Pork Roll, egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches; Avatar 3D; our new fish and frogs at the apartment; WigWam socks; and time at home with the family
SELLS: We don’t have too many SELLS from the holiday weeks, but two things that we are definitely selling are Paranormal Activity and game-changing injuries in National Championship games.
Kyle and Casey Send Holiday Greetings, Thoughts on Cameron North
What’s up Duke fans!! We are on our first day of Winter break today! Last night we got a big time win against Gonzaga. We knew going into the game that Gonzaga was a really good team, and we prepared well for the game. Playing at the Garden is something that we’ll always remember, and it makes it even better when our whole team plays great together and we get to come away with a big W heading into break!
We finished up finals before heading to New York and it always is a great feeling when you finish up a semester strong. Finals week is really busy for all of us, but once its over your hard work feels even more rewarding. Our academic advisor, Kenny King, is helpful all of the time, but he really keeps us all focused and feeling confident throughout the week. You can always count on a text from Kenny a few hours before your exams letting you know that, “You’re going to ace it buddy!! Good Luck!!” Kenny really is awesome!
Once finals finished up we were able to get back to more full time practices. The coaches are really helpful during finals week, and they work around our schedules and when we have papers due, exams, tutoring sessions, etc. So once we all finished up all of our work, we all were ready to get back out on the court together and prepare for some games!
New York was awesome. On Friday night we went to dinner at Sparks Steakhouse in the city. The steaks were incredible! The game went great on Saturday. We played our defense for forty minutes and it really turned out well! After the game some of us left directly from the Garden to go home with our family and friends who had come to the game. The coaches and a few of our teammates went back on the plane to Durham, but it definitely wasn’t nearly as filled as it was on the way to NYC. Getting to see our families is always awesome, especially after a big W. The weather on Saturday night got a little nasty, and it started to snow pretty hard. The guys on the plane back to Durham didn’t get delayed too long, but some of us got delayed over night in NYC. Luckily everyone who was delayed in New York had their families with them!
Our buys/sells for this week…
BUY: “Cameron North”, as a fan nicknamed Madison Square Garden, where we have learned to love to play and win! We’re also buying Christmas music playing out on the court before the game! Whatever songs they were blasting at the Garden, it definitely got us going!
SELL: We are selling being stuck in an airport, definitely not fun.
We are all looking forward to spending the Holidays at home with our families and friends, and wanted to say thanks to all of you for all of your support that you give us!! Have a safe and happy Holidays, and we will have our next entry out soon!!
KY and CP
Kyle and Casey at practice at the Garden
Kyle Singler and Casey Peters on Radford, practice, and their latest BUYS and SELLS
What’s up Duke fans?! The season is definitely underway and we’re having a great time with it. As you guys know we’re 3-0 right now, and are coming off a win against Charlotte Tuesday night. It was awesome to have Nolan back out there, and our team defense was good on Tuesday night. With Nolan back out there Lance was able to move off the point guard and cover their second big, and we really connected together on D which was fun. Mase still is out with his wrist injury, but we’re hoping that he recovers soon. Today we got our travel bags after practice which is always cool, because we know that we are going to be hitting the road soon. Before we go to New York for the NIT to play at MSG, we play Saturday afternoon in Cameron versus Radford. Radford is a really solid team, with a really talented big man who is getting looks from NBA teams. After Tuesday night our whole team is really excited to get out there and play together again on Saturday.
Today’s practice was really good, we worked on some of the stuff that Radford will probably show us. Practice and getting together as a team is nice because we all really like playing together and hanging out as a group. After practice we had our team meal up in Scharf Hall. Our team meals are always awesome! Today we had some chicken and pasta, steak quesadillas, macaroni and cheese, salad, and some fruit salad too. Even better than the food is Sam, the lady who gets all the food and everything ready for the meal. She is the best!! No matter what happened during the day you can always count on Sam being there making you smile!
Now that the Yanks took home the World Series chip we’ve been watching a lot of college football and basketball and NBA ball too. Right now Syracuse and Cal are playing, UNC and Ohio State are playing later, the Suns are playing the Hornets, later Jon’s Chicago Bulls are playing the Lakers with Coach Collins’ dad with the call, South Carolina and LaSalle are on ESPNU, Colorado and Oklahoma State are playing some football, and the Dolphins and Panthers (Seth’s NFL squad) are playing too, great night of sports.
Both of us have some school work to get done before we head to NYC too, and with the Fall semester starting to wind down we have a bunch of papers, projects and exams coming up.
Before we go, we just want to remind you all of our first BUY in the first blog, which was to BUY and BUY A LOT of Nolan Smith. Our BUYS and SELLS for this round:
BUY – Oreo Holidays limited edition cookies, the ACC in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge this year, Katt Williams standup comedy, and Dickie V’s energy on the mic.
Some of our early-season SELLS: The pink-tie-on-pink-shirt look and the bow-tie look on the bench, any other player in the country matching up with Jon in video games
Thanks for reading and we hope to see you Saturday in Cameron. We’ll check back with you next week from NYC.
Kyle & Casey Ready for the First Regular-Season Game
Hey Duke Fans!
Last night we played our last exhibition game against the Division II National Champs Findlay. They were a really good team, but we played a good second half and came away with a solid win. Practice really picked up in intensity last week, everyone is really excited because the season really is here, and our next game counts in our record!
Off the court we have been doing some pretty fun things too. Casey is a big Yankees fan, so we have been watching the MLB playoffs, and I know he is hoping that the Yanks can win the Series tonight in Game 6, I guess you could call me a Yankees fan by association! We’ve also been watching some new YouTube videos. Lately we have been watching a lot on the “2012 Theory”. There is a new movie coming out soon about the whole theory, but basically what it says is that centuries ago the Mayans predicted that December 21, 2012 would be the end of the world. The videos have a lot of interesting theories and information that all seem to fit together, but we don’t buy it. We also have been watching some blooper videos, including the Top 10 Most Awkward Sports Interviews and the Chinese Food Prank Call.
In addition to all this, we both have also had a lot of school work the past week. Kyle has been working on a big project for one of his art classes, called Maya, where he forms shapes based on numerical data from a large company. He chose Nike and then coordinated all the shapes into an animated scene that is supposed to symbolize the company and its elements on the whole. It is hard to explain, but it is really really cool how each shape represents a different piece of data, like stock price, or number of workers, and the animated scene he made is really cool. I also have been doing a lot of work this past week too, with both an Econ and an Environmental Science exam last week. We also are registering for classes for Spring Semester this Friday, so Kenny King our Academic Adviser has been helping everyone on the team get classes organized for that.
Before we go, our buy/sell for this entry…
BUY: Any kind of blooper videos on YouTube
SELL: “2012 Theory”
Hey Duke fans! This is Kyle and Casey hanging out watching some baseball at our off-campus apartment, and we thought it would be a good time to write up our first blog. We’re pumped about the S&P 1253 on Blue Planet and just to get this all started we are going to introduce each other a little bit.
Casey: Kyle, in my opinion (and in the opinion of a lot of experts around the country), is the best player in college hoops this year, and is by far the most competitive person I have ever met. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big-time basketball game or a casual game of ping-pong, he is going to bring it. K-Y as a lot of us call him wears #12 for us as you all know, but off the court he is just as talented as he is on the court, which is going to make for a lot of fun throughout the year on the blog.
Kyle: Casey wears #53 for us, and as some of you might know was a manager for us for his first two years here at Duke. Case is an awesome teammate, and we have become really close friends throughout our three years here at Duke (and I even got to show him a little bit of what my hometown South Medford, Oregon is all about last summer). Casey and I have spent a lot of time in the gym together, but some of our best times also happen when we are away from the court.
It is pretty clear that Duke fans are simply some of the best in the world. Obviously you guys get to see what we do out on the court with the Crazies intimidating the other teams, but what we want to do is to give our Duke fans a more behind the scenes, personal feel about what we do in our time when we are not playing, and basically open it up to talk about our day to day stories, and what we like to do as college students. Throughout the season we’re going to obviously be talking a lot of basketball too, but like we said we want to open it up to what we are doing throughout the day, even away from Cameron, like if we found a new food spot that we really like, if we’re starting up a pretty cool new art project, or if someone actual beat Jon in a video game!
We are going to try and update our blog as often as we can, hopefully at least every week, but we also would love to hear from you all, and we definitely will answer as many questions or respond to any ideas that you guys have for us! Also, in addition to all that, we are going to do a weekly section where we talk about our predictions for what’s hot and what’s not for the coming week, in something we’re going to call “Buy and Sell” (hence the title’s spin off on the S&P 500 stock index). A little insider trading tip, definitely BUY Nolan Smith this year, stock is sure to jump up big time!!
Anyway, I hope you all are as excited for the coming season as our whole team is! Like Coach has said, we are much different than a lot of Duke teams of the past, and we all believe that we have the potential to make this an incredibly special year!! We are looking forward to getting our blog underway with you guys, so like we said, all questions and comments are cool. Until next time Crazies…KY and CP
