The Buzz in Barca: Senior Alisha Breen

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Evan O’Kelly Director of Communications O: (406) 657-2130 E: evan.okelly@msubillings.edu Sunday, June 18, 2017 The Buzz in Barca: Senior Alisha Breen

Part 6 of MSUB’s women’s basketball blog detailing the trip to Barcelona, Spain, features senior Alisha Breen.

May 17, 2017 | By: Alisha Breen BARCELONA – The first day of our trip was filled with hours of exploring the town of Girona and was topped off with the first of our two games, but not until 9 p.m. The town of Girona is extremely unique in the fact that a good portion of it seems very medieval. We began the day in one group, but due to the fact that there was so much to see we ended up breaking up into several smaller groups. It was fun because we would be wandering down a random street or ally and run into someone from our group! Girona is well known for its architecture, which is encompassed by an old wall that has watchtowers along the length of it. We all at one point climbed up and took a walk across the top of the wall and were able to see all of Girona which was super neat. It never ceased to amaze me how old and elaborate all of the buildings were. We walked around and looked at the two cathedrals a couple times, and each time I stared in awe. It’s hard to believe that these buildings were built so long ago, but still stand in such good shape today. You could walk around the city for hours and find something new and interesting to look at. The timing of our trip was when the “flower

festival” was taking place. I think this made the city even busier with tourists, but many of the well-known tourist attractions were covered in beautiful flower arrangements and patterns. So, not only did we see the attractions but some of the local handy work with floral arrangements.

I was super excited to go to Girona because this was where some of the Game of Thrones scenes were shot in Season 6! Girona depicted Braavos and Kings Landing for those Game of Thrones nerds out there. My group probably got fed up with me because I went online to find each spot that there was filming and then marked it on the map and walked around until I went to every one of them, (they were good sports about it though).

Girona’s 900-year-old cathedral appears a couple times, once when Jaime Lannister rides up the staircase leading to the front doors, and then in the final episode where it actually explodes. One of the other more well-known attractions was the Arab baths. This was one scene from Braavos that Aria was seen in, but she also had other scenes that were captured in the streets of Girona and it was fun hunting them and taking my own pictures of them.

We got back to the hotel around 5 p.m., and had time to lounge before 7 p.m. when we left for our game. No one really knew what to expect when we got to the gym. We didn't know where we were playing, who we were playing, or anything about the opponent. We had nine people suit up, including our manager during the year, Alyssa. Right before the game Jenny found out we would be playing by European rules. That didn’t give us much of a chance to make any adjustments or really understand the rule differences, so we just went out and played!

In Europe they use a 24-second shot clock instead of a 30-second shot clock used in America. On top of that, if you get an offensive rebound the clock resets to 14 seconds, so you have less time to get a second shot at the basket. This wouldn’t seem like such a big difference, but the girls all said that those six seconds really sped up the game and it was hard to adjust to. The biggest adjustment that we had trouble with was the travel rule. An American travel is different than a European travel. In the open court, like on a fast break, we are used to catching the ball in stride and attacking the basket. In Europe you can’t do that. On a fast break you have to catch the ball on a jump stop, and then attack the basket. In the heat of the moment we forgot this multiple times, so we probably had 10-to12 fast-break points that we lost due to the girls getting called for travels. The 3point line was another foot behind our line, the lane line was at a diagonal instead of straight, and there were no “charges” called we realized quickly.

The girls played hard, and ended up losing by about eight I believe. Playing at nine o'clock after a full day of travel, 8-hour time change, and then a full day of sight seeing made them pretty exhausted. Even though the first game didn’t end up like we would have hoped, I believe everyone got better and we grew as a team because we had to adjust to the rules together and help each other get through it.

The Buzz in Barca blog is a 9-part series detailing the Yellowjackets’ trip to Barcelona, Spain on the dates of May 17-21, 2017. Each of the player journal entries can be viewed online here.

--@MSUBSports | #BuzzInBarca--