Creighton went whitewater rafting earlier in the week.
Photo by: Creighton Athletics
#JaysDownUnder -- Keeping Up With Creighton Basketball in Australia
8/11/2019 10:25:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Follow Creighton's trip to Australia
In this location, we'll post daily updates in addition to photo galleries and videos of our trip to Australia. You can also follow along on social media on Twitter or Instagram, or by searching the #JaysDownUnder hashtag on each platform.
For more information on the details of our trip, including our game schedule, visit here.
To revisit our 2015 trip to Italy, visit here.
To revisit our 2011 trip to the Bahamas, visit here.
August 12, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 12 Photo Gallery Today was our final full day in Australia, and with nothing on the docket until leaving for our game at 4:30 pm AEST, gave everyone one last chance to explore the Gold Coast, the beaches, or do any shopping to pick up some souvenirs.
This trip was billed as the trip of a lifetime, and it's far exceeded expectations. If Australia is on your bucket list, and you have the financial means, it's definitely a great place to go on "holiday". Be aware, the 14-hour flight from Los Angeles to Australia is a doozy….I know there's a couple people dreading that tomorrow already.
Since there hasn't been much going on yet today (we'll post a game recap later, as our venue is nearly an hour away from our hotel), instead I'll write some observations from the land Down Under.
1. Getting used to the traffic flow, where cars drive on the left side of the road, remains head-scratching even after nearly two weeks. When you're in a bus driving up a winding row on a mountain, and you see a car coming at you from the right lane, you'll still flinch.
2. Similar to item #1, there's a lot of roundabouts. And quite frankly, I still have no idea which way the cars are coming from. I've found it's best just to wait until there are no cars in sight from any direction, or to wait until others start crossing the street and follow them closely.
3. There are a lot of similarities to the United States, and there's no language barrier since English is so universal. Several of us observed that Sydney felt like a mix of San Diego and San Francisco.
4. We had a lot of guys face some fears while in Australia and thrive under adverse situations while getting outside of their comfort zones. Some guys who were afraid of heights conquered the ropes course and climbed the Harbour Sky Bridge. Others who didn't like certain animals held koalas, snakes or baby crocodiles. Learning to trust teammates and develop a bond with them will have huge long-term ramifications, both on-and-off the court .
5. The planning by tour host Kelvin Taylor of Showtime Basketball, as well as our own Steve Merfeld and John McKew, has gone off with very few hitches. The schedule has kept us busy and on the move, but months of planning have had a huge reward. Our group has an app with the activities for each day, links to where we're going, when to meet where, and everyone has been on time throughout.
6. Rugby and Australian Rules Football are not the same thing. This country is still buzzing from the Wallabies big win over the (New Zealand) All Blacks in Rugby a few days ago. And either Rugby or Australian Rules Football seems to be on TV anytime we walk past one.
7. Foster's may be "Australian for Beer" according to ads you've seen in the US, but I've yet to see it on any menu in any restaurant we've visited. Similarly, the movie Crocodile Dundee isn't exactly revered around here, and believe it or not, Hollywood may have taken a few exaggerations on the film.
8. I'm not sure I've seen a single vending machine while here.
9. Even though he's been unable to play due to injury, no one's had more fun on this trip than Jacob Epperson. He's relishing the chance to be back home, and to explain the customs and nuances of his native country. There's also been plenty of things we've done that he's never experienced, which is great. He'll have a good-sized following at tonight's game that are anxious to see him return home.
10. Pray for us on Tuesday, as we get into a time machine to fly home. We take off at 11:05 a.m. (AEST) on Tuesday morning, and are scheduled land in Los Angeles at 7:10 a.m. (PST) on that same day. Such is flying across the international date line, while adding in a 17-hour time difference. So while we never got to experience August 2nd on our way here due to it being lost in transit, our August 13th will be a 38-hour day.
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Our final game is on Monday night at 7 p.m. AEST, which is 4 a.m. Central. There will be live stats at http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=265327, and free live video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BloRARrZNz8.
August 11, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 11 Photo Gallery
Our first full day in the Gold Coast saw the entire team and most of the group of fans bus an hour in the morning to the Tree Top Challenge at Mt. Tamborine. It was billed as a zip line experience, but in reality it was more of a high-intensity ropes course with a few zip lines mixed in between.
Upon arrival we got fitted with gloves, helmets and harnesses and the guides explained how to clip ourselves on and off each wire, and then we had several places to fine-tune our skills before the challenge started for real with us crossing several swaying wooden bridges that were over a laser tag course.
The ropes course featured us climbing the steps along various trees, pulling ourselves over wires and other bridges that required long strides to go from plank to plank. Knees were weakened, arms were heavy…it was definitely quite tiring, and at least one member of our party got stuck on a wire, halfway between platforms, and had to be "rescued" by a guide and lowered down to the ground.
There were three different degrees of difficulty, and you couldn't start the next level until you finished the ones before it. Most of the team made it through all three course levels, with the most difficult level also providing some of the longest and most-rewarding zip lines down.
We bussed back to the hotel and had two hours in the early afternoon to explore the Gold Coast, including a nearby beach, before heading to a special alumni dinner here in Australia where we met up with some of our fans from Down Under.
August 10, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 10 Photo Gallery
We woke up on Saturday morning and immediately headed to the Cairns airport, where we boarded a plane to Brisbane. Around here's it's pronounced "Briz-bin", and our flight attendant was calling it "The Brizzy" while giving pre-flight instructions.
We immediately drove near the center of town and were dropped off in an area where plenty of shops and eating options. We were located right next to The Gabba (the stadium), where we attended a rivarly game between the Gold Coast Suns and the Brisbane Lions. Brisbane won three straight titles from 2001-03, but since then has been quite bad. Now that they are near the top of the standings the fans are getting back on the bandwagon, and the 42,000 seat stadium was probably half-full
The rules to Australian Rules Football were literally quite foreign to everyone (except Jacob), but we quickly learned the scoring system and many of the signals. The field itself is enormous...think the size of a baseball field or bigger, and oval shaped. We had great seats along the sideline, though it seemed like most of the action took place on the other sideline. The sport is rather rough and full of tackling and what we'd consider pass interference with all sorts of pushing and shoving before the ball is attempted to be caught or kicked, but no one seems to mind.
The game starts with one of the referees (there are nine referees in all) spiking the ball at midfield and the two players jumping up trying to grab it or tip it to a teammate. When a ball goes out-of-bounds, one of the refs takes the ball, turns his back to the field, and chucks it as high and as far onto the field as he can for another pseudo-jump ball scenario. The ball is the size roughly the same size and shape as a watermelon, but is kicked long ways during play like a football. It was quite entertaining, even though Brisbane won easily as was expected.
Following the game we drove another 45 minutes or so to our hotel along the Gold Coast, where we'll stay. Our tour guide Kelvin told us that Gold Coast has tons of beaches, while Brisbane doesn't, which is one reason we'll stay there. He's been awesome throughout the trip while wrangling our group from city-to-city, and is one reason while Showtime Basketball welcomes so many U.S. teams to Australia each summer on trips like ours.
Brisbane/Gold Coast is our final stop in this trip, but moving around to different cities has kept things fresh and helped create so many new experiences that our guys will never forget. Tomorrow, we'll spend the morning by going zip lining, so check back again in the morning for another update.
August 9, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 9 Photo Gallery
Our final full day in Cairns saw us wake up early to head to the Great Barrier Reef, which many people consider one of the seven wonders of the world and is the world's largest coral reef system. Rumor is that it can be seen from outer space as it is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms and measures more than 130,000 square miles in size.
The Reef was about an 80 minute boat ride from the dock. We stopped at two different places along the way for an roughly 90 minutes, with nearly everyone on our boat getting out to snorkel and/or scuba dive. Damien Jefferson, who suffered a cut during last night's game, had to stay on the boat, but those in the 73 degree water had a blast checking out all the reefs and colorful fish. It's hard to describe the massiveness of the Reef, and how the clarity and temperature of the water would differ depending on the depth of the water.
Those that chose to scuba dive required an hour-long training session, plus additional training in the water. We scuba'd in groups of five, with our guide in the middle, interlocking arms. It's amazing how many different creatures are visible, including turtles, starfish and octopus. We didn't see any sharks, which I think was a huge relief, though we did see a whale breach the water from a distance on our way out to the Reef.
After returning to shore around 4:30 p.m., we had an opening evening where many of us walked the neighborhoods to find local restaurants to try.
Cairns has been a blast, but we'll depart in the morning for Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and spend the afternoon checking out an Australian Rules Football game.
Hopefully you enjoy the video above with Jacob Epperson and Shereef Mitchell. Many of the guys already call Mr. Mitchell by the name of "Reef", so it's only fitting on a day like this that he's the guest.
August 8, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 8 Photo Gallery | August 8 Photo Gallery (Part 2)
Thursday in Cairns was a beautiful and action-packed day. While some people slept in, a group of 20 or so in our group got up early and headed to the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park just outside the city, where we learned a ton about the traditions and history of the world's oldest living culture. Our group was also taught how (and got multiple chances to) throw a boomerang and a spear. Apparently the intent of the boomerang is to throw it at a flock of birds, hoping to knock down one of them, and catching it only if missed any flying objects. Best of all, no one got hurt.
After a short break for lunch we headed to Hartley's Crocodile Farm for one of the best parts of our trip to date. Our adventure started when we split onto two boats and drove around a small man-made river that had about 50 crocodiles around it. While narrating in the role of a tour guide, the boat driver would dip pieces of meat into the water and then lift them so that we could see the crocodiles jump up to snatch their food. All the passengers were behind thick glass and grated metal, so we were in no danger even though the powerful specimens were just 10 feet away or so.
When that got done we headed down a path not too far away where we found dozens of kangaroos. Many of them were just relaxing and could be approached and pet as we fed them pellets. There were also emus, wallabies, exotic birds and other local wildlife.
There was also a small outdoor theater where they had various shows that were quite entertaining. One show featured the three-most venomous snakes in the world that the show host would hold and show off while telling stories about each one. The most dangerous is a Taipan...the same kind of snake that the basketball team we played tonight is named after. There also was a guy who put on a show with a crocodile in the same small pond not too much later. He would also feed the crocodile so it jumped out of the water. He was braver than most of us would be...he was barefoot and in the water for much of the show even though the crocodile was nearby and nearly invisible when it was under water.
Before we left the crocodile farm many people in our group got a chance to hold a koala bear and get a photo taken with it. The koala's have huge claws and a strong grip, and don't exactly smell the greatest. The koala bears at this place are only allowed to "work" and be handled by the public for 30 minutes per day, so we were quite fortunate that our group had this chance. It also gave us a photo opportunity that led to a fun tweet like this:
About 90 minutes after driving back to the hotel we headed about 10 minutes away to the arena where the Cairns Taipans play, which is known in these parts as "The Fish Tank." The Purdue University women's basketball team beat Cairns in the game prior to ours, so we had a chance to experience the atmosphere. It's quite different than an American atmosphere, as they play loud rock music during play for virtually the entire game, while also mixing in other sound bytes such as Kawhi Leonard's laugh or Nelson's "Ha Ha" on turnovers or missed free throws. It was a smaller gym seating probably just more than 1,000, but the fans were excellent and supportive of both teams.
As for the game, it didn't start so well as we fell behind 9-2 and trailed 29-13 after one quarter. We got down by as much as 29 points (55-26) and still were behind 57-36 at the break before a big comeback. We outscored the Taipans 33-7 in the final 8:11 of the first quarter, took our first lead of the game with 6:30 left, and held off the hosts 89-85. You can read more about that game here.
Friday morning we're up early to head to the Great Barrier Reef. Check back tomorrow morning to see how it went!
August 7, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 7 Photo Gallery
We said goodbye to Sydney this morning with a 6:30 a.m. departure time from our hotel as we headed to Cairns, which is on the northern border of Australia. Everyone was anxious to see Ty-Shon Alexander, and he showed up just as our plane was boarding after coming in from Lima, Peru by way of Los Angeles. He was understandably tired, but happy to rejoin his Creighton teammates after a few weeks away. The 3 hour flight to Cairns didn't seem nearly as bad as a normal flight, since all of us were coming off the more than 14 hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney last week.
Upon landing, we had two choices. There was a group of 22 that went to the very small town of Kuranda, which is located at the top of a winding road in the mountains. After 90 minutes or so of shopping, looking at Australia's largest butterfly sanctuary and/or eating, we headed to Skyrail, which is a small gondola that runs on a cable (think Skyfari from the Henry Doorly Zoo) and seats 5-6 people in each tram car. It takes you just over the treetops of a mountainous rainforest. The trees seem to be 300 feet and many are probably thousands of years old. There were three stops along the way, including a beautiful waterfall at the first stopping point. We saw some butterflies, but not a ton of exotic birds, and it went both up and down the mountain to stay just above the bright green treetops, which filled the landscape as far as the eye could see.
Everyone else in our group, including all the players but Kelvin Jones (who couldn't due to his cast) went whitewater rafting and had a great time. Only a few people fell out of the rafts, but they were all safely recovered and pulled back in the boat in no time. Luckily, the water was warm. I'm told we'll have those photos soon.
For dinner, the players headed to a Brazilian steakhouse that's near our hotel. Among the kinds of meat they tried was kangaroo. Rumor has it that it was a little chewier than expected. Our hotel in Cairns is right on a huge body of water, but we haven't fully explored the city since today was action-packed.
Thanks for following along...we'll have another update for you mid-morning tomorrow since our game in Cairns doesn't start until 5:30 a.m. Central and it'll take some time to get back to the hotel and get everything posted and written.
August 6, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 6 Photo Gallery
Tuesday was our last full day in Sydney, and was left pretty wide open for everyone to explore the city after a morning breakfast at Pancakes on the Rocks.
As Marcus and Jacob explained in the video above, many of the guys returned to Manly beach, which we first visited near sunset two days ago. Plenty of beach time, some boogie boarding, shopping and eating kept everyone pretty entertained. Others in the travel party went golfing, visited some of the other beaches, or took advantage of the nearly 20 degree Celsius weather (that's 70 degrees back home). The weather has been perfect during our stay here, although it's strange to see most of our guys in shorts and t-shirts while the natives are bundled up in their coats and other assorted 'winter' clothing. It's also quite strange that the sun sets around 5:15 p.m., which seems to challenge everyone's body clock from time to time.
We'll leave first thing in the morning to head back to the Sydney airport, as the second leg of our trip takes us up north to Cairns. Sounds like much of the team will try whitewater rafting, though others have the option to take a skyrail through a rainforest
This has been an incredible trip so far...we're all quite fortunate for the experience and would like to thank those that made it possible.
August 5, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 5 Photo Gallery Part 1 | August 5 Photo Gallery Part 2
Our third day in Sydney featured a morning trip to the Sydney Opera House, where we toured some of the five different stages and theaters and learned about its history. It opened in 1973 and was supposed to cost $7 million to build, but ended up running just a tad bit over at $102 million. Oops.
Our tour guide asked if we had any budding singers in the group, and several people identified Antwann Jones as a good candidate, and he's certainly not bashful. He was asked to sing the song of his choice so that we could listen to the incredible acoustics within the theater. You'll have to watch his video with Jacob Epperson above to learn the song he chose, which led our entire group breaking into the song, much to the surprise of the workers on stage who were setting up way down below for this evening's opera. Then again, it is winter down here in Australia.
As we were leaving the Opera House our guys learned that Team USA beat the Dominican Republic to win the bronze medal at the Pan American Games. Geoffrey Groselle had a double-double and Ty-Shon Alexander contributed to the comeback win for the team made up some of the best players around the BIG EAST. So after playing five games in five days, Ty-Shon now flies from Lima, Peru to Sydney, Australia, with a stop in Los Angeles along the way. I know the guys can't wait to have him get here, and I'm sure he's equally excited to enjoy his third intercontinental flight in the last eight days. The good news is that once he lands at the Sydney airport on Wednesday morning, he'll stay there for a few hours before our entire group meets him at the airport when we fly to the second city on our trip, Cairns. We're there for a few days before flying on to Brisbane and then heading home on the 13th. And then he gets to fly from Brisbane to Los Angeles and back home.
We then had a few hours of downtime in the lead-up to the first game of our trip, which you can read about here and watch a few highlights of here. It was the kind of up-and-down game that you'd expect for a team that hasn't played a game since late March and boasts a mix of veterans and newcomers. It's safe to say the best is yet to come. It was great to see Samson Froling at the game as well. He now plays professionally here in his home country of Australia. Samson grew up playing for the Australian Institute of Sport, of which many of the B'Ball Centre of Excellence players are a part of. It's generally considered to have some of the best young players on this side of the globe, with virtually every player a Division I recruit or headed to the professional ranks in the very near future.
Check out the photo galleries above the video of Jacob and Antwann for more sights of what we did today.
August 4, 2019 by Jordan Scurry
August 4 Photo Gallery
Day two was really something else. The day started off hot when I woke up at 4:30 a.m. because of jet lag, but it wasn't too bad cause my road roommate Damien Jefferson was also feeling it as well. We found the solution was just to watch a couple movies until the sun came up and then we could just head to team breakfast. The hotel breakfast was actually really good because they had so many options from omelets to seafood ... yes seafood, like fish…for breakfast. The highlight however, was getting to try Vegemite. For those of you who don't know, Vegemite is basically Australian Nutella and given that you can only get it in Australia I had to try it. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as Nutella but maybe my taste buds are just super American, and I was hoping it would be a bit sweeter.
After breakfast we went right on to the Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb. I would say that as a team we were all pretty optimistic about the climb at first but once we actually got there everyone got a little nervous once we saw how high up, we were actually setting out to climb. Luckily, I am not that scared of heights, so I volunteered to be the first person in line to follow our group leader up the 450 foot climb to the top of the Sydney Bridge. The climb was relatively safe as they strapped us in to harnesses the whole way up and gave us the proper gear to make the climb as smooth as possible. With that being said we still had some soldiers sustain minor panic attacks along the way. Davion Mintz and Mitch Ballock might not be intimidated by any player in the country but if you want to see them rattled just put them about 200 feet above the ground and tell them to look down. The climb was truly amazing though, it was probably the most beautiful 360 degree view I have ever seen in my life and I was really thankful that I got to share the experience with my teammates.
After the Bridge Climb, we spent the rest of the afternoon at Manly beach. We got to Manly beach by taking a scenic 20-minute ferry ride. The beach itself was really pretty but also very cold. Even with the low temperature it didn't stop some of the guys like Jacob and Mitch from spending a solid hour in the ocean. I am very thankful we got to do the Sydney Harbor Bridge climb and visit Manly beach with my teammates but, like yesterday, one of the best parts was being able to share this experience with our coaches, families, and supporters that made this trip with us.
Most schools have fans that support their players on the court, but not every school has fans that support you when you almost pee your pants on the top of the Sydney bridge.  Â
August 1-3, 2019 by Jordan Scurry
August 1-3 Photo Gallery
Today is the first day of what I'm hoping will be one of the coolest trips I ever take, as the Creighton Bluejays men's basketball team is making the journey from Omaha to Australia. The trip started with us flying from Omaha to Denver then Denver to Los Angeles and then finally the 15-hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. As a senior I am more than thankful to be a part of this amazing opportunity. This is going to be my third time leaving the country as a part of Creighton basketball and I still can't believe just how fortunate I am to say this. As a result of my travel and playing experience with Creighton I thought I would have some pretty cool insight as to what this experience is like not only for myself but for our whole team.Â
The first day of travel was long, to say the least but it wasn't bad at all. Our first two flights from Omaha to Denver and then Denver to Los Angeles were more exciting than anything. You could tell from the first two flights how excited we all were. The first two flights we had happened in the afternoon and the level of laughter and communication throughout the flights were at an all-time high. We had guys cracking jokes on each other from like 15 rows apart and guys offering to pay one another just to get the exit row (yeah it's that serious). Even our first layover in Denver wasn't bad because we were able to get some food and even chat with all of our fans and supporters that are also making the journey with us.
Check back again each morning (in Omaha) as we plan to blog and post video that summarizes the day's events.
For more information on the details of our trip, including our game schedule, visit here.
To revisit our 2015 trip to Italy, visit here.
To revisit our 2011 trip to the Bahamas, visit here.
August 12, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 12 Photo Gallery Today was our final full day in Australia, and with nothing on the docket until leaving for our game at 4:30 pm AEST, gave everyone one last chance to explore the Gold Coast, the beaches, or do any shopping to pick up some souvenirs.
This trip was billed as the trip of a lifetime, and it's far exceeded expectations. If Australia is on your bucket list, and you have the financial means, it's definitely a great place to go on "holiday". Be aware, the 14-hour flight from Los Angeles to Australia is a doozy….I know there's a couple people dreading that tomorrow already.
Since there hasn't been much going on yet today (we'll post a game recap later, as our venue is nearly an hour away from our hotel), instead I'll write some observations from the land Down Under.
1. Getting used to the traffic flow, where cars drive on the left side of the road, remains head-scratching even after nearly two weeks. When you're in a bus driving up a winding row on a mountain, and you see a car coming at you from the right lane, you'll still flinch.
2. Similar to item #1, there's a lot of roundabouts. And quite frankly, I still have no idea which way the cars are coming from. I've found it's best just to wait until there are no cars in sight from any direction, or to wait until others start crossing the street and follow them closely.
3. There are a lot of similarities to the United States, and there's no language barrier since English is so universal. Several of us observed that Sydney felt like a mix of San Diego and San Francisco.
4. We had a lot of guys face some fears while in Australia and thrive under adverse situations while getting outside of their comfort zones. Some guys who were afraid of heights conquered the ropes course and climbed the Harbour Sky Bridge. Others who didn't like certain animals held koalas, snakes or baby crocodiles. Learning to trust teammates and develop a bond with them will have huge long-term ramifications, both on-and-off the court .
5. The planning by tour host Kelvin Taylor of Showtime Basketball, as well as our own Steve Merfeld and John McKew, has gone off with very few hitches. The schedule has kept us busy and on the move, but months of planning have had a huge reward. Our group has an app with the activities for each day, links to where we're going, when to meet where, and everyone has been on time throughout.
6. Rugby and Australian Rules Football are not the same thing. This country is still buzzing from the Wallabies big win over the (New Zealand) All Blacks in Rugby a few days ago. And either Rugby or Australian Rules Football seems to be on TV anytime we walk past one.
7. Foster's may be "Australian for Beer" according to ads you've seen in the US, but I've yet to see it on any menu in any restaurant we've visited. Similarly, the movie Crocodile Dundee isn't exactly revered around here, and believe it or not, Hollywood may have taken a few exaggerations on the film.
8. I'm not sure I've seen a single vending machine while here.
9. Even though he's been unable to play due to injury, no one's had more fun on this trip than Jacob Epperson. He's relishing the chance to be back home, and to explain the customs and nuances of his native country. There's also been plenty of things we've done that he's never experienced, which is great. He'll have a good-sized following at tonight's game that are anxious to see him return home.
10. Pray for us on Tuesday, as we get into a time machine to fly home. We take off at 11:05 a.m. (AEST) on Tuesday morning, and are scheduled land in Los Angeles at 7:10 a.m. (PST) on that same day. Such is flying across the international date line, while adding in a 17-hour time difference. So while we never got to experience August 2nd on our way here due to it being lost in transit, our August 13th will be a 38-hour day.
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Our final game is on Monday night at 7 p.m. AEST, which is 4 a.m. Central. There will be live stats at http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=265327, and free live video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BloRARrZNz8.
August 11, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 11 Photo Gallery
Our first full day in the Gold Coast saw the entire team and most of the group of fans bus an hour in the morning to the Tree Top Challenge at Mt. Tamborine. It was billed as a zip line experience, but in reality it was more of a high-intensity ropes course with a few zip lines mixed in between.
Upon arrival we got fitted with gloves, helmets and harnesses and the guides explained how to clip ourselves on and off each wire, and then we had several places to fine-tune our skills before the challenge started for real with us crossing several swaying wooden bridges that were over a laser tag course.
The ropes course featured us climbing the steps along various trees, pulling ourselves over wires and other bridges that required long strides to go from plank to plank. Knees were weakened, arms were heavy…it was definitely quite tiring, and at least one member of our party got stuck on a wire, halfway between platforms, and had to be "rescued" by a guide and lowered down to the ground.
There were three different degrees of difficulty, and you couldn't start the next level until you finished the ones before it. Most of the team made it through all three course levels, with the most difficult level also providing some of the longest and most-rewarding zip lines down.
We bussed back to the hotel and had two hours in the early afternoon to explore the Gold Coast, including a nearby beach, before heading to a special alumni dinner here in Australia where we met up with some of our fans from Down Under.
August 10, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 10 Photo Gallery
We woke up on Saturday morning and immediately headed to the Cairns airport, where we boarded a plane to Brisbane. Around here's it's pronounced "Briz-bin", and our flight attendant was calling it "The Brizzy" while giving pre-flight instructions.
We immediately drove near the center of town and were dropped off in an area where plenty of shops and eating options. We were located right next to The Gabba (the stadium), where we attended a rivarly game between the Gold Coast Suns and the Brisbane Lions. Brisbane won three straight titles from 2001-03, but since then has been quite bad. Now that they are near the top of the standings the fans are getting back on the bandwagon, and the 42,000 seat stadium was probably half-full
The rules to Australian Rules Football were literally quite foreign to everyone (except Jacob), but we quickly learned the scoring system and many of the signals. The field itself is enormous...think the size of a baseball field or bigger, and oval shaped. We had great seats along the sideline, though it seemed like most of the action took place on the other sideline. The sport is rather rough and full of tackling and what we'd consider pass interference with all sorts of pushing and shoving before the ball is attempted to be caught or kicked, but no one seems to mind.
The game starts with one of the referees (there are nine referees in all) spiking the ball at midfield and the two players jumping up trying to grab it or tip it to a teammate. When a ball goes out-of-bounds, one of the refs takes the ball, turns his back to the field, and chucks it as high and as far onto the field as he can for another pseudo-jump ball scenario. The ball is the size roughly the same size and shape as a watermelon, but is kicked long ways during play like a football. It was quite entertaining, even though Brisbane won easily as was expected.
Following the game we drove another 45 minutes or so to our hotel along the Gold Coast, where we'll stay. Our tour guide Kelvin told us that Gold Coast has tons of beaches, while Brisbane doesn't, which is one reason we'll stay there. He's been awesome throughout the trip while wrangling our group from city-to-city, and is one reason while Showtime Basketball welcomes so many U.S. teams to Australia each summer on trips like ours.
Brisbane/Gold Coast is our final stop in this trip, but moving around to different cities has kept things fresh and helped create so many new experiences that our guys will never forget. Tomorrow, we'll spend the morning by going zip lining, so check back again in the morning for another update.
August 9, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 9 Photo Gallery
Our final full day in Cairns saw us wake up early to head to the Great Barrier Reef, which many people consider one of the seven wonders of the world and is the world's largest coral reef system. Rumor is that it can be seen from outer space as it is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms and measures more than 130,000 square miles in size.
The Reef was about an 80 minute boat ride from the dock. We stopped at two different places along the way for an roughly 90 minutes, with nearly everyone on our boat getting out to snorkel and/or scuba dive. Damien Jefferson, who suffered a cut during last night's game, had to stay on the boat, but those in the 73 degree water had a blast checking out all the reefs and colorful fish. It's hard to describe the massiveness of the Reef, and how the clarity and temperature of the water would differ depending on the depth of the water.
Those that chose to scuba dive required an hour-long training session, plus additional training in the water. We scuba'd in groups of five, with our guide in the middle, interlocking arms. It's amazing how many different creatures are visible, including turtles, starfish and octopus. We didn't see any sharks, which I think was a huge relief, though we did see a whale breach the water from a distance on our way out to the Reef.
After returning to shore around 4:30 p.m., we had an opening evening where many of us walked the neighborhoods to find local restaurants to try.
Cairns has been a blast, but we'll depart in the morning for Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and spend the afternoon checking out an Australian Rules Football game.
Hopefully you enjoy the video above with Jacob Epperson and Shereef Mitchell. Many of the guys already call Mr. Mitchell by the name of "Reef", so it's only fitting on a day like this that he's the guest.
August 8, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 8 Photo Gallery | August 8 Photo Gallery (Part 2)
Thursday in Cairns was a beautiful and action-packed day. While some people slept in, a group of 20 or so in our group got up early and headed to the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park just outside the city, where we learned a ton about the traditions and history of the world's oldest living culture. Our group was also taught how (and got multiple chances to) throw a boomerang and a spear. Apparently the intent of the boomerang is to throw it at a flock of birds, hoping to knock down one of them, and catching it only if missed any flying objects. Best of all, no one got hurt.
After a short break for lunch we headed to Hartley's Crocodile Farm for one of the best parts of our trip to date. Our adventure started when we split onto two boats and drove around a small man-made river that had about 50 crocodiles around it. While narrating in the role of a tour guide, the boat driver would dip pieces of meat into the water and then lift them so that we could see the crocodiles jump up to snatch their food. All the passengers were behind thick glass and grated metal, so we were in no danger even though the powerful specimens were just 10 feet away or so.
When that got done we headed down a path not too far away where we found dozens of kangaroos. Many of them were just relaxing and could be approached and pet as we fed them pellets. There were also emus, wallabies, exotic birds and other local wildlife.
There was also a small outdoor theater where they had various shows that were quite entertaining. One show featured the three-most venomous snakes in the world that the show host would hold and show off while telling stories about each one. The most dangerous is a Taipan...the same kind of snake that the basketball team we played tonight is named after. There also was a guy who put on a show with a crocodile in the same small pond not too much later. He would also feed the crocodile so it jumped out of the water. He was braver than most of us would be...he was barefoot and in the water for much of the show even though the crocodile was nearby and nearly invisible when it was under water.
Before we left the crocodile farm many people in our group got a chance to hold a koala bear and get a photo taken with it. The koala's have huge claws and a strong grip, and don't exactly smell the greatest. The koala bears at this place are only allowed to "work" and be handled by the public for 30 minutes per day, so we were quite fortunate that our group had this chance. It also gave us a photo opportunity that led to a fun tweet like this:
Who did it better ??????#GoJays | #JaysDownUnder pic.twitter.com/boynyfnpke— Creighton Men's Basketball (@BluejayMBB) August 8, 2019
About 90 minutes after driving back to the hotel we headed about 10 minutes away to the arena where the Cairns Taipans play, which is known in these parts as "The Fish Tank." The Purdue University women's basketball team beat Cairns in the game prior to ours, so we had a chance to experience the atmosphere. It's quite different than an American atmosphere, as they play loud rock music during play for virtually the entire game, while also mixing in other sound bytes such as Kawhi Leonard's laugh or Nelson's "Ha Ha" on turnovers or missed free throws. It was a smaller gym seating probably just more than 1,000, but the fans were excellent and supportive of both teams.
As for the game, it didn't start so well as we fell behind 9-2 and trailed 29-13 after one quarter. We got down by as much as 29 points (55-26) and still were behind 57-36 at the break before a big comeback. We outscored the Taipans 33-7 in the final 8:11 of the first quarter, took our first lead of the game with 6:30 left, and held off the hosts 89-85. You can read more about that game here.
Friday morning we're up early to head to the Great Barrier Reef. Check back tomorrow morning to see how it went!
August 7, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 7 Photo Gallery
We said goodbye to Sydney this morning with a 6:30 a.m. departure time from our hotel as we headed to Cairns, which is on the northern border of Australia. Everyone was anxious to see Ty-Shon Alexander, and he showed up just as our plane was boarding after coming in from Lima, Peru by way of Los Angeles. He was understandably tired, but happy to rejoin his Creighton teammates after a few weeks away. The 3 hour flight to Cairns didn't seem nearly as bad as a normal flight, since all of us were coming off the more than 14 hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney last week.
Upon landing, we had two choices. There was a group of 22 that went to the very small town of Kuranda, which is located at the top of a winding road in the mountains. After 90 minutes or so of shopping, looking at Australia's largest butterfly sanctuary and/or eating, we headed to Skyrail, which is a small gondola that runs on a cable (think Skyfari from the Henry Doorly Zoo) and seats 5-6 people in each tram car. It takes you just over the treetops of a mountainous rainforest. The trees seem to be 300 feet and many are probably thousands of years old. There were three stops along the way, including a beautiful waterfall at the first stopping point. We saw some butterflies, but not a ton of exotic birds, and it went both up and down the mountain to stay just above the bright green treetops, which filled the landscape as far as the eye could see.
Everyone else in our group, including all the players but Kelvin Jones (who couldn't due to his cast) went whitewater rafting and had a great time. Only a few people fell out of the rafts, but they were all safely recovered and pulled back in the boat in no time. Luckily, the water was warm. I'm told we'll have those photos soon.
For dinner, the players headed to a Brazilian steakhouse that's near our hotel. Among the kinds of meat they tried was kangaroo. Rumor has it that it was a little chewier than expected. Our hotel in Cairns is right on a huge body of water, but we haven't fully explored the city since today was action-packed.
Thanks for following along...we'll have another update for you mid-morning tomorrow since our game in Cairns doesn't start until 5:30 a.m. Central and it'll take some time to get back to the hotel and get everything posted and written.
August 6, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 6 Photo Gallery
Tuesday was our last full day in Sydney, and was left pretty wide open for everyone to explore the city after a morning breakfast at Pancakes on the Rocks.
As Marcus and Jacob explained in the video above, many of the guys returned to Manly beach, which we first visited near sunset two days ago. Plenty of beach time, some boogie boarding, shopping and eating kept everyone pretty entertained. Others in the travel party went golfing, visited some of the other beaches, or took advantage of the nearly 20 degree Celsius weather (that's 70 degrees back home). The weather has been perfect during our stay here, although it's strange to see most of our guys in shorts and t-shirts while the natives are bundled up in their coats and other assorted 'winter' clothing. It's also quite strange that the sun sets around 5:15 p.m., which seems to challenge everyone's body clock from time to time.
We'll leave first thing in the morning to head back to the Sydney airport, as the second leg of our trip takes us up north to Cairns. Sounds like much of the team will try whitewater rafting, though others have the option to take a skyrail through a rainforest
This has been an incredible trip so far...we're all quite fortunate for the experience and would like to thank those that made it possible.
August 5, 2019 by Rob Anderson
August 5 Photo Gallery Part 1 | August 5 Photo Gallery Part 2
Our third day in Sydney featured a morning trip to the Sydney Opera House, where we toured some of the five different stages and theaters and learned about its history. It opened in 1973 and was supposed to cost $7 million to build, but ended up running just a tad bit over at $102 million. Oops.
Our tour guide asked if we had any budding singers in the group, and several people identified Antwann Jones as a good candidate, and he's certainly not bashful. He was asked to sing the song of his choice so that we could listen to the incredible acoustics within the theater. You'll have to watch his video with Jacob Epperson above to learn the song he chose, which led our entire group breaking into the song, much to the surprise of the workers on stage who were setting up way down below for this evening's opera. Then again, it is winter down here in Australia.
As we were leaving the Opera House our guys learned that Team USA beat the Dominican Republic to win the bronze medal at the Pan American Games. Geoffrey Groselle had a double-double and Ty-Shon Alexander contributed to the comeback win for the team made up some of the best players around the BIG EAST. So after playing five games in five days, Ty-Shon now flies from Lima, Peru to Sydney, Australia, with a stop in Los Angeles along the way. I know the guys can't wait to have him get here, and I'm sure he's equally excited to enjoy his third intercontinental flight in the last eight days. The good news is that once he lands at the Sydney airport on Wednesday morning, he'll stay there for a few hours before our entire group meets him at the airport when we fly to the second city on our trip, Cairns. We're there for a few days before flying on to Brisbane and then heading home on the 13th. And then he gets to fly from Brisbane to Los Angeles and back home.
We then had a few hours of downtime in the lead-up to the first game of our trip, which you can read about here and watch a few highlights of here. It was the kind of up-and-down game that you'd expect for a team that hasn't played a game since late March and boasts a mix of veterans and newcomers. It's safe to say the best is yet to come. It was great to see Samson Froling at the game as well. He now plays professionally here in his home country of Australia. Samson grew up playing for the Australian Institute of Sport, of which many of the B'Ball Centre of Excellence players are a part of. It's generally considered to have some of the best young players on this side of the globe, with virtually every player a Division I recruit or headed to the professional ranks in the very near future.
Check out the photo galleries above the video of Jacob and Antwann for more sights of what we did today.
August 4, 2019 by Jordan Scurry
August 4 Photo Gallery
Day two was really something else. The day started off hot when I woke up at 4:30 a.m. because of jet lag, but it wasn't too bad cause my road roommate Damien Jefferson was also feeling it as well. We found the solution was just to watch a couple movies until the sun came up and then we could just head to team breakfast. The hotel breakfast was actually really good because they had so many options from omelets to seafood ... yes seafood, like fish…for breakfast. The highlight however, was getting to try Vegemite. For those of you who don't know, Vegemite is basically Australian Nutella and given that you can only get it in Australia I had to try it. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as Nutella but maybe my taste buds are just super American, and I was hoping it would be a bit sweeter.
After breakfast we went right on to the Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb. I would say that as a team we were all pretty optimistic about the climb at first but once we actually got there everyone got a little nervous once we saw how high up, we were actually setting out to climb. Luckily, I am not that scared of heights, so I volunteered to be the first person in line to follow our group leader up the 450 foot climb to the top of the Sydney Bridge. The climb was relatively safe as they strapped us in to harnesses the whole way up and gave us the proper gear to make the climb as smooth as possible. With that being said we still had some soldiers sustain minor panic attacks along the way. Davion Mintz and Mitch Ballock might not be intimidated by any player in the country but if you want to see them rattled just put them about 200 feet above the ground and tell them to look down. The climb was truly amazing though, it was probably the most beautiful 360 degree view I have ever seen in my life and I was really thankful that I got to share the experience with my teammates.
After the Bridge Climb, we spent the rest of the afternoon at Manly beach. We got to Manly beach by taking a scenic 20-minute ferry ride. The beach itself was really pretty but also very cold. Even with the low temperature it didn't stop some of the guys like Jacob and Mitch from spending a solid hour in the ocean. I am very thankful we got to do the Sydney Harbor Bridge climb and visit Manly beach with my teammates but, like yesterday, one of the best parts was being able to share this experience with our coaches, families, and supporters that made this trip with us.
Most schools have fans that support their players on the court, but not every school has fans that support you when you almost pee your pants on the top of the Sydney bridge.  Â
August 1-3 Photo Gallery
Today is the first day of what I'm hoping will be one of the coolest trips I ever take, as the Creighton Bluejays men's basketball team is making the journey from Omaha to Australia. The trip started with us flying from Omaha to Denver then Denver to Los Angeles and then finally the 15-hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. As a senior I am more than thankful to be a part of this amazing opportunity. This is going to be my third time leaving the country as a part of Creighton basketball and I still can't believe just how fortunate I am to say this. As a result of my travel and playing experience with Creighton I thought I would have some pretty cool insight as to what this experience is like not only for myself but for our whole team.Â
The first day of travel was long, to say the least but it wasn't bad at all. Our first two flights from Omaha to Denver and then Denver to Los Angeles were more exciting than anything. You could tell from the first two flights how excited we all were. The first two flights we had happened in the afternoon and the level of laughter and communication throughout the flights were at an all-time high. We had guys cracking jokes on each other from like 15 rows apart and guys offering to pay one another just to get the exit row (yeah it's that serious). Even our first layover in Denver wasn't bad because we were able to get some food and even chat with all of our fans and supporters that are also making the journey with us.
Our arrival in LAX was when everything finally started to get real. When we got to LA , that level of laughter and communication from those first two flights started to die down. Our focus shifted a bit from the giddy attitude about getting to go to Australia to having to come to terms with the fact that we were about to have to sit on a plane for 15 hours! In one of my conversations with Christian Bishop at the airport in LA he even said, "Dang man, I wish there was a way we could just be there already. It's not that I don't want to go, it's just that 15 hours in a plane might drive me crazy." We all kind of felt this way to be completely honest we started making jokes about if the pilot would be down to make a stop halfway through so that we could walk around for a little bit, or if one of the coaches would stretch us out before we boarded, but I think that was just because we were all getting a little delusional even before the flight.
The flight didn't even end up being as bad as I thought but maybe I was just one of the lucky ones. With our flight to Sydney leaving LAX around midnight on Aug 1st, I watched about two movies at the start of the flight and then must have slept for a good 8-10 hours before waking up and hearing there was only about two hours left till we land. Once we landed it still hadn't really sunk in yet that we just traveled nearly halfway around the world because I was still pretty tired and honestly just wanted to go take a shower and lay down. The fact that we had just made this trek only sunk in once we went immediately from the Sydney airport to Bondi beach. If you want to talk about a great place to stretch your legs and get some fresh air after a 15-hour flight, Bondi beach is the place. It is absolutely amazing as you drive up and are able to see miles of coast line. It was quite the scene after getting off a plane at 8am, we saw huge waves, got to feel just how refreshing the ocean water here is and even had some fun interactions with the locals when they noticed we were a college basketball team. They noticed probably because of my height….or Jacob's, either way they figured out we were on the same team without me telling them so I'll take it.Â
As you might be able to tell we are not wasting anytime here in Australia, and especially not with all that Sydney has to offer. I truly can't wait to see what this trip will have ahead. Outside of just being able to spend quality time with my teammates and coaches on and off the court I can already tell this trip is going to be filled with stories and laughs I am going to be able to take with me for the rest of my life. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to be here with and that how I know this is going to be one heck of a trip so please follow along as your Creighton Bluejays takeover Australia ! Â
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Check back again each morning (in Omaha) as we plan to blog and post video that summarizes the day's events.
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