Portland senior Luke Sikma has taken on blogging duties for the men’s basketball team and he’ll be checking in from time-to-time to give fans an in-depth look into the program. Make sure to bookmark www.portlandpilots.com/SikmaBlog and follow Sikma and the Pilots all season.
You can send Luke any questions, comments or feedback that you might have by clicking HERE.
Entry #1
Oct. 12, 2010
Hey Pilot Fans! Welcome to the first installment of the Pilot Men’s Basketball blog! I’d like to first introduce myself, my name’s Luke Sikma and I’m a senior forward from Bellevue, Washington. Away from the court I like to watch Food Network, eat chicken wings, and get mad at Jared Stohl when he plays his country music too loud. In terms of this blog I hope to help you guys get to know our team and highlight the many talents we have as well as give you a taste of what it’s like to hoop at the University of Portland.
The first order of business is to let you in on what we’ve been doing since school ended last spring. This summer, we had the whole team on campus for summer school, including the eight, I repeat, eight newcomers. While there is always some uncertainty having that many new faces at one time, the new guys impressed and showed that they had what it takes to be the next generation of Portland Pilots by working hard in the weight room, classroom, and on the basketball court. A less obvious advantage of summer school is that it gives us the chance to bond as a team before the frenzy that is fall semester hits. Being the gregarious and sociable bunch that we are it didn’t take us long to get comfortable. One of the more memorable moments of our summer is when we went through our whole team and assigned everybody an NBA counterpart based strictly on physical appearance (Let’s just say Jasonn Hannibal is a dead ringer for Roy Hibbert of the Pacers…Google it).
The conclusion of summer school meant a short break at home before returning to campus with the rest of the student body for the start of the school year. Since then it’s been a steady diet of 7 a.m. weights and conditioning with Coach Scott, class, practice, open gym, sleep, studying and food, with a few naps here and there. We also helped out at the Special Olympics Oregon out at the Nike campus which is a great experience for us, you can check out the pictures here. This Friday marks the official start of practice so while the rest of the student body is enjoying a much need vacation during fall break we’ll be working hard towards being a team you can be proud of!
Until next time!
Luke Sikma #43
