Le Basket à la belge

Rita went to her first and I to only my second professional basketball game ever last night. No, we didn't see the Wizards or the Bobcats, but we did see Dexia Mons Hainaut spank the ever lovin' daylights out of Spotter Leuven! DMH is the local team and a pretty danged good one. They're tied for second in the Belgian league, have already qualified for the next round of the European championships, and could seal a first place finish and home court advantage with a 3-point win Tuesday over Ural Great Perm.

I've been intrigued by the Mons team ever since I noticed that among its four American players were Justin Gray (Wake Forest '06 and pictured here), whose college career we had followed closely, and Ben Ebong, fellow Davidson alum ('99). I shamelessly dropped their names when I emailed the team to reserve tickets, which caught the attention of the press director, who in turn decided that we would be his guests. We got to meet Ben quickly before the game and had a chance to chat briefly with Justin afterward. It was cute watching the Belgian teenagers fawn over him as he signed autographs. All the boys wanted their picture taken with him, and one of the girls asked him for a bisou (the kiss on the cheek). Not surprisingly that was a French word he knew.

Anyways, we had a great time. Our guys did really well: Justin was the high scorer with 23 points (a point a minute), and Ben had 8 points, 4 rebounds, a pair of assists, and some solid defense. As is always the case when you see a familiar thing in a new setting, some things were different. Maybe the weirdest was that they pounded drums while the home team was shooting free throws. But it was still the same game we know, and we'll be going back to see some more. Allez l'union!