Bradley men's basketball players Mason Alwan and Ka'Darryl Bell will be providing their perspective of the team's trip to the Bahamas next week with periodic posts in a new BradleyBraves.com feature - Blogging with the Braves.  Mason makes the intial post in the blog Wednesday.

Mason Alwan here with my first post for the trip.  Everyone is getting pretty excited to go on our trip down to the Bahamas. It should be a great experience for all of us, especially because very few of us on the team have actually been out of the country - I know this is my first time, as well as many of the other guys.

I am a little bummed out because I will not get the opportunity to play down there due to the fact that I re-broke my right foot in an open gym a couple of weeks ago.  Being on the beach in a few days will definitely make up for the disappointment of not playing, though!!  Hopefully after the trip I'll be able to get back into basketball a little more and Ka'Darryl Bell should be back then, too.  I cannot wait to get back to the court!

Being that I have not been able to play, I have gotten the chance to watch practice the past few weeks and it really excites me, not only as a player, but as a life-long Bradley basketball fan.  This team is competing extremely hard and really getting after it in every practice.  Everyone has been working hard since the end of last season and many of my teammates have significantly improved (it seems we rarely miss threes in practice).  The practices can get tough doing two-a-days everyday, but every practice has been great so far and the team seems hungry to do great things this year.  I know everyone will be ready to start beating up on different teams as opposed to beating up on each other every day.

The new guys (Omari and Anthony included) have been playing extremely well in my eyes and there should be a lot of competition for minutes, which is always a good thing.  This trip will be a great chance to see how everyone plays in live-game action, as well as a chance for some people to settle more into their roles.  These past few weeks have been important, not only for the returning guys but also the new guys. We lost a great deal of leadership from last year's team and the players that have returned this year have done an exceptional job of leading during practice.  The new guys are learning how hard one has to play every possession at this level to achieve success.

We have all bonded closely this last month and all the new guys are already fitting in entirely, both on the floor as well as in the locker room.  We have a few days of practice left.  We are getting together for a cookout, just the players, and that should be a good time before we leave with some great food!  

I look forward to getting down to the Bahamas and getting to watch my teammates win some games!  We really do love everyone's support and look forward to representing the Bradley name down in the Bahamas.  It will be a nice opportunity to bond as a team, have some fun and, of course, win some games!  Next time I post will probably be in the Bahamas so I will talk to you all then.

Thanks for reading Bradley fans!!