Men’s Basketball: Gatkuoth Blog

Steven Gatkuoth, a 7'0" center from Sudan and member of the Mars Hill men's basketball team, will be playing for the Sudanese National Team in the Arab Basketball Championship from September 14-24 in Beirut, Lebanon. He kept a blog of his travels.

Hi everyone!

After some time off, we played Iraq in an important game. If we won, we could have advanced to the next round. We played well and were leading at halftime. Unfortunately, we had too many turnovers late in the game and lost 86-78. I played well, ended up with a double-double and five blocked shots.

We have one more game against United Arab Emirates. We lost our last game to the United Arab Emirates, 85-61. We just never seemed to get in the flow as a team. I had my best game of the tournament with 18 points and 17 rebounds, but I'm very disappointed with the loss. Our tournament is over, btut I'm really looking forward to getting back to school.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ September 17, 2010

Hey!

How is everybody doing? I'm doing great over here! The other day, we played Lebanon and played well in the first half. We were only down five at halftime, but we had too many turnovers in the second half and lost the game. I played pretty well and finished with six points, seven rebounds and three blocks.

I'm still having fun, but I'm a little frustrated about today's game. We lost 75-67 to Saudi Arabia even though I think we were the better team. Turnovers were a problem again, and our defense wasn't good. We have tomorrow off and will try and make some adjustments for our next game.

Until next time,

Steven

Sudan will play Iraq on Saturday and the United Arab Emirates on Sunday.

Ten countries are participating in the 2010 Arab Basketball Championship. The teams are divided into two groups, with Group A consisting of Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and Kuwait. The countries in Group B are Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Iraq. The teams participating in the tournament are preparing for the Asian and African Games, which will be held next year. Games will be televised by the Future TV Network.