John Henson Jordan Brand Classic Diary 4

The fellas scrimmage at Gauchos and sign autographs for the kids.

Rewind the clock a bit before you read this. We dropped the ball on John Henson’s final dairy, which he wrote the afternoon before the Jordan Brand Classic. So instead of playing it off like it never happened, we’ll take the hit and apologize to John for posting this late. For his first diary, click here. And for more on the game, visit the game’s official website and Justin Walsh’s complete recap.

As told to Justin Walsh

Today, we woke up at 9 a.m., that’s earlier than the previous days. That part’s definitely good because I was worn out and exhausted last night, I needed the break. At breakfast I had three bowls of cereal, I keep telling people, I eat a lot, it just doesn’t stay on! Hah, then we went to work with the Children’s Aid Society. We read to them and talked to them, we helped them with a couple drills and coached ‘em for about an hour. I’m telling you, we had a dance contest with the kids; all the kids were really into it while they were dancing, it was funny!

After that we had some pizza, I just realized how often I talk about food in these media interactions, because we are always chewing on something! While we were outside of our rooms at the hotel some people asked for autographs so we signed a few of those…

Finally we had that big scrimmage you hear about every year. We played it at Gauchos Gym, it’s always got famous people there. Kevin Durant and Nate Robinson were watching us play! [Also in the crowd was New York City streetball great God Shammgod.—Ed.] At one point we were up by 20, getting the shots we wanted, defending well inside—but we ended up losing, so that’s one thing we need to work on to get that W tomorrow! You know, keeping the lead, playing better D, not slacking off when on a run… We need to improve that. That’s why we lost a close game 99-97. I had a few good blocks, I felt I defended well with the competition I faced. I also had some good plays, drove the length of the court and finished at the rim.

Later on tonight I’ll be at the awards banquet, we’ll be getting our rings and celebrating our high school accomplishments a bit. After that, I’m going to rest for the big game tomorrow. Next time, I’ll have played in Madison Square Garden, with an All-American game under my belt!