Portland senior guard D'Marques Tyson will be chronicling Portland's foreign tour throughout the trip to Leicester and London. Here is his first entry as the team was traveling from Portland to London. Fans can get regular updates and complete tour coverage by visiting PortlandPilots.com/LondonTour.

Dear Pilot Nation,

As we are gearing up to take off to London, the team is eager to play and experience a different culture. We have been practicing for the past week and a half and then ended the week with a purple and white scrimmage open to the public. Being a senior it was interesting to see the team dynamic, and how it compared to teams in the past. After doing so I came to the conclusion that this year's team has the most cohesive and talented unit during my time at Portland.
           
During our first Practice Coach Porter emphasized how big defense will be to our team this year, and pointed out that as a team we were really weak last year. Having only six returners, and only four of them playing minutes last season; we have a very young team. Therefore it should be easier to engrain Coach Porter's philosophy of basketball. At our first practice we looked very rusty, didn't seem to be playing very well together, and had a lack of execution that is to be expected of a team with nine new faces on the roster. The third day of practice was by far the hardest day of practice. We ended up practicing for about four hours and by the end I think that everyone was just ready to go to sleep. Those are the days that build great teams, and it was easy for the players to understand that and everyone has a dedication to the game that I have yet to see from a previous Pilot team.
           
In some of the later practices Coach Porter emphasized the three E's that we should focus on for the season; those three E's being energy, effort, and execution. By the time that we were ready to play our scrimmage we were starting to understand how the offense works and the rotations on defense. The overall team cohesiveness was really shown in the scrimmage and you could see that we had talent throughout every position that the Pilots haven't had in a while. Franklin Porter led all scorers with 27 points in a losing effort for the white team. Rashad Jackson, 20 points and 10 rebounds, and Philipp Hartwich, 17 points and 16 rebounds, led the purple team to victory. Overall, the team looked good aside from a plethora of turnovers, and we're ready for victory and team bonding in London.
 
Sincerely,
D'Marques Tyson