This was my second year to cover the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament in the Bahamas for USA Today Sports and it is one of the events that I was absolutely looking forward to! After Duke beat Louisville in the exciting final in 2012, I was ready to see some more great basketball! I must admit though that photographing 12 basketball games in 3 days is a lot of work, but at the same time, the location is absolutely breathtaking!(I, of course, took a couple days off to relax after the games were done.) 🙂
The tournament is first class all the way as Lea Miller and her team definitely know how to put on an impressive event! It was great to finally meet her as well! For those of you that do not know, the basketball court is actually a massive hotel ballroom that is converted into an arena during the week! I know it sounds impossible, but it really looks awesome and the fans are right on top of the action!
The BIG winners were the Villanova Wildcats as they played some pretty impressive basketball!! Here are a few other shots I took from the week…
It was also my first time to cover the Kansas Freshmen Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid. I think both of these guys might be top 5 NBA draft pics next year!
The tournament also invites all of the Miss USA winners from each state that plays in the tournament and they compete in fun games against each other during timeouts, etc… As you can see, I had to get a photo with Lauren Guzman and represent the GREAT State of Texas! 😉
I am also super excited for next year’s event as my alma mater Oklahoma will be in the super loaded field! Stay tuned to my blog as I will be posting regular updates from my coverage of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi next month!