Timeline Diary of Jonah Travis: Part 2

Six-foot-5 DeLaSalle small forward Jonah Travis is one of the top five players and one of the top five prospects in the state of Minnesota for the 2011 class. Travis played center for DeLaSalle last year averaging ten points a game for coach Dave Thorson as a sophomore. In the spring and summer Jonah plays his natural position of small forward for the Minnesota Pump N Run and has helped lead the team to 16 and Under tournament championships at the Pump N Run Spring Classic and the Jayhawk Invitational. The Pump 16s were also crowned the 17 and Under state champions in the state of Minnesota after winning all six games played in back to back weekends.

Travis recently joined several Pump N Run teammates on a college tour. The travels of Travis took him through the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Colorado as Jonah worked out, camped and/or unofficially visited several schools. While on the road Jonah kept a timeline diary of his trip for the fans of Minnesota Preps and Rivals.com. This is part two of that timeline diary.

TRIP TO COLORADO

Wednesday June 24th

9:45- Report to airport.

11:00- Time to fly.

12:00- Land and drive straight to Colorado State's campus to check in. They give us bags, a tee shirt, and some nice jerseys. They look like Hopkins jerseys except they were green and white and reversible.

3:00- Start camp with stretching then we move onto shooting drills. We are split into six groups with the bigs going to their own basket. I notice Chad Calcaterra is at the camp with his Pulley stuff on. I also see a familiar face from Mo Kan Spiece. We had just played them in our last tournament in Iowa. I have no idea what the kids name is all I know is that he is really good. After doing 3 on 2, 2 on 1 drill it's time for dinner. (EDIT: The player from MoKan Spiece is believed to be Nino Williams)

6:00- Food is catered in.

7:45- Stretch again, more shooting drills, then onto the fun, 5 on 5. My coaches are high school coaches from Omaha. I'm put on a team with Chad (Calcaterra) and Dwight, a 6-foot-2 incoming senior from Omaha who has already verbally committed to Colorado State (EDIT: The player's name is Dwight Smith). The first game is a close one against the Mo Kan kid's team and with actual referees. Chad ends up with a couple dunks. I'm surprised how good Dwight is. True point guard who scores at will and throws dimes left and right. No one wanted to box me out so I ended up with three tip dunks that game. I look over and see Steve Tecker and Erik Robertson going hard against Zee's (Aaron Ziman) team.

8:30- We play our next game against Robertson and Tecker's team. Before the game starts Robertson gives me the scoop on who I'm guarding, then I'm giving him the scoop on his man. Just teammates trying to help each other out. Robertson makes a couple good shots and then Tecker puts on a couple nice moves to get to the basket. They had no real size so Chad ended up with a lot of points. Usually at elite camps it seems like every one is out to get theirs, but not with my team. We do a good job of sharing the ball. I think because Dwight has nothing really to prove, he spends most of his time throwing dimes to people. He told me many times to go post up that he would give it to me whenever he would recognize that I would have a mismatch.

9:15- We have an optional one on one contest. I'm bugged by Coach (Jeremy) Miller until I get up and volunteer to be put into it. We are split up into five groups of three at different baskets. Each person is given five minutes to score as many points as possible. If defense rebounds he goes on offense and face the next guy in line, if offense scores then he stays on.

You are given a three dribble limit and the ref will call fouls. I'm put with a point guard and a pretty athletic 6-foot-9 kid. I start slow then I start to heat up. After hitting a couple jumpers in a row, the 6-foot-9 kid starts to come closer which allows me to blow past him. He goes to the side of me and tries to pin it off the backboard. He doesn't expect me to elevate so he jumps with me and I put a nasty dunk on his face. Feeling so salty he sits out for the rest of the game. I tied the guard so we both move on to the finals with everyone else who won their pool. The Mo Kan Speice kid ended up in the finals too. I do absolutely nothing (in the finals). I think I might have had two points at the most as every shot I took didn't want to go in.

10:00- We walk towards our dorm in the night and none of us have any idea where to go. Coach Miller had to stay along with the other coaches and we had to walk. Zee, Kyle Noreen and I get split up from Shelby (Moats), Robertson, and Tecker. It took us almost an hour to find the place.

11:00- After showering we order some pizza and we all sit in a room and eat it.

12:00- Lights out.

Thursday June 25th

7:15- Wake up to pounding on the door from one of the coaches.

8:00- Eat breakfast.

9:00- Get to the court and stretch, then do some shooting and ball handling drills.

12:30- Lunch.

1:30- We played the rest of the five on five games and then played in the all star game. I'm on the same team as Chad, Kevin Noreen, Shelby, and the Mo Kan kid but he doesn't play because of his early flight plans. Robertson and Tecker are put on the opposite team. It goes great as Shelby had some nice post ups, Robertson makes some nice shots, and Tecker finishes as usual. I hit a nice shot and had a nice take. I went up for a two handed dunk after a pass from Chad and I took a two handed push to my chest from some junior college kid that was at the camp. The game was close the whole way and I think my team ended up winning but I'm not for sure.

4:30- We get done with camp and have a tour with assistant coach Niko Medved around campus. The campus was great. We had already seen most of it because we got lost the night before and walked around over half the campus.

5:30- Drive to Northern Colorado and meet with the Coach. I see the kid from Northfield who had played for the Magic 17s last year; he stays and walks around with us for the whole tour (EDIT: The head coach of Northern Colorado is Tad Boyle and the Northfield player at Northern Colorado is Emmanuel Addo).

We walk around the practice facility and it's very crowded because they had their girls' team camp at that time. As we were walking around it starts to rain so we make a quick run to the cafeteria and then to the dorms. The dorms were by far the nicest I've seen. There were 3 bedrooms, a living room, and kitchen all in one place. Because of the rain we sat down for a little bit in their game room and watched the Timberwolves select their draft picks. Why they chose all these guards is beyond me. We walk around some more and make our way back to the car.

6:30- Coach Miller takes us to a nice restaurant where it's all you can eat spaghetti.

9:00- Get to the hotel and get ready to go see a movie.

9:45- We go see Transformers 2 which I thought was even better than the first (EDIT: In some areas the Transformers 2 movie had the release date moved up).

12:00- Leave the movie theater go to the hotel.

1:00- Lights out

Friday June 26th

8:30- Wake up and go down stairs to eat then go back upstairs to sleep.

12:30- Make our way towards University of Denver. It's Tom Kroschell's alma matter, so he gives us a quick tour of where he hung out when he went there.

2:00- Have our first game of the team camp. We all play pretty unselfishly so we all end up with about the same amount of points. I think we win by about 20.

5:00- Start our second game which goes pretty much the same as the one before. We were only up by six at half time like the last game and then we pull away in the second half.

7:30- Go out to eat at Applebee's.

10:15- Get to the hotel then lights out.

Saturday June 27th

7:00- Wake up, get ready, go have breakfast and head off to Boulder.

8:30- Get to University of Colorado campus. We pretty much drove straight into the mountains and then we were there. We go to the main gym for registration where they give us a reversible jersey and a nice pair of Nike shorts, and then we walk to their practice gym.

9:30- We start with a couple shooting drills then we move on to transition 3 on 3, 4 on 4, and then 5 on 5. I don't know how Erik and I get stuck with the youngest group of the three that were there.

12:30- We walk back to the main facility where they have Chipotle waiting for us in one of their conference rooms. We go back and sit down and eat in the stands.

1:30- The top 25 kids are told to stay in the stadium while the others go back to the practice facility. We go through a couple of shooting and ball handling drills. Then we move on to a full court drill, where you're trying to turn the defender the opposite way. Kevin Noreen and I pair up with each other. We get through about half the drill and I catch a hard knee to the calf, which has me sitting for the rest of the camp and the trip. The players then started playing 5 on 5. Both Zee and Kev looked pretty good against everyone.

3:00- We leave the camp a little early so we can get a little rest before the next game at Denver team camp.

5:30- We have the first game of the day. I spend the whole time in the trainer's room trying to get the knot out of my calf, but we still win.

7:00- I spend the second game going 20 minutes on and off with ice. It seemed like Kyle Noreen was doing everything. He was making threes, he was posting up, and he was taking people of the dribble. No one could guard him. We ended up winning by almost 30.

8:30- Get to the hotel order some pizza then go to bed.

Sunday June 28th

9:00- Wake up and have breakfast then head over to the gym.

11:00- They put us in an exhibition game that doesn't count at all. The refs wanted to referee the game because it was supposedly the best two teams playing each other even though we had already played them the day before and blown them out by about 30. I know it's kind of confusing I still don't really get the reasoning behind it.

12:00- The first actual game starts. This is also the first game of bracket play. Kyle starts back where he left off last night scoring all over the place. The person who really surprised me was Shelby. He was hitting everything inside and outside including threes. I see this all the time in practice but I've never seen him shoot like this in an actual game. If he and Kyle play like that, we'll be hard to beat once the July tournaments start.

2:00- The championship game begins. About a couple minutes into the game Robertson drives baseline and someone tries to take a charge a little bit inside the lane. Robertson goes up and does Dwight Howard's superman dunk and throws it in over the kid. It was unbelievable. Even though I was on the bench icing I still got up and stood on the court yelling and laughing with the rest of the team. He shoots the and one free throw but misses it. I doubt he could concentrate after a dunk like that. He would also go baseline again for a nice two handed bang out later in the game. Both Shelby and Kyle started back where they left off. Kev up to his usual self and Zee was pretty much just playing with people the whole game. There was a rumor going around that their point guard has an offer from Iowa State. He was good but I would take Zee over him any day.

4:00- Arrive at the airport for a 4:40 flight, quick grab something to eat then get on the plane.

7:30- Back home at last.