Mark Madsen Diary #5 - 2/4/00Any time you play against UCLA, you know it is going to be an absolute war. It really was an intense game last night when we played at Pauley Pavilion. Right before the game, during Coach Montgomery's pre-game talk, I was looking up at the chalkboard and saw the letters U-C-L-A up on the board. For a split second I thought to myself, "Am I really here?" I thought back to when I was young and would watch UCLA games on TV all the time. I thought back to Coach Wooden and all of the great things that he has done for the game of basketball. Playing at Stanford has really been a dream come true. I can't even say how thankful I am for the opportunity to play basketball for Stanford. Playing for Coach Montgomery and playing with the group of guys that we have on our team is something special.All of the guys on the team get along really well. Last week, it was Mike McDonald's and my birthday on the same day and Joe Kirchofer's two days later. We all got together for a big dinner. We had the barbecue going, and Mrs. McDonald was in town also. She must have made the guys about 10 pounds of fresh tacos. And they were GOOD!! She would walk out of the kitchen with a plate full of tacos every five minutes and they'd be gone in about five seconds! It was a lot of fun. A lot of the guys have midterms either this week or next week. I have two midterms on Monday and I've been trying to study for them and do a lot of reading. David Moseley has a couple of midterms coming up also. We'll be on the bus going to a practice facility on a road trip and David will open up a big textbook in the back and sit there with a highlighter and just study, study, study. Even if the bus ride is only 10 minutes, he'll try to take advantage of that time. I've still got a few chapters to catch up on for my European Economic History class. On game days on the road, we have meetings, meals or shoot-around for most of the day so we all really have to take advantage of the free time that we have on non-game days. Now we have a huge test against USC on Saturday. USC has been playing extremely well and it is up to us to try to find a way to contain guys like Brian Scalabrine and Brandon Granville. All of the guys in the Pac-10 know each other. We were down here in L.A. at the beginning of the season in the John Wooden Classic. We played against Auburn and USC played against Duke. Anyway, we were all in the same hotel and Brian Scalabrine came up to my room and Tyler Besecker, Brian and I sat there and talked basketball for about 20 minutes. Scalabrine is a fierce competitor and opponent. On the court, we've had some rough play between the two of us, but off the court he is a complete gentleman. I look forward to playing against USC on Saturday. |