For the third straight year, a group from the Jordan Brand Classic is travelling Internationally -- this time to Istanbul, Turkey -- for a two-day training camp with 40 of the top prospects in Europe from March 3-8.  Ten players will be selected as the Most Valuable Players from the camp and they will travel to the United States in April, along with six players from other regions of the world to compete in the third annual International Game as part of the Jordan Brand Classic on Saturday, April 17th at Madison Square Garden in New York City.  Follow along with our blog and daily photo gallery from staff member Kevin Foley.

March 5th (1:00 am EST / 8:00 am Turkish time)
Good mornng!  I woke up this morning to see a very wet Istabul outside.  The average temperature has been about 50 degrees since we got here, but there are rumors of snow here tomorrow.  Yikes.  I just had another great breakfast with fresh fruit, yogurt verious meats and bread.  It hit the spot.  All of the players arrive between 12 -4.  The 40 players represent 20 different countries from Europe and Russia.  We will be meeting the players when they get to the hotel, measuring them (height and weight) and fitting them for practice uniforms.  At 2 pm, we will have our "press meeting" with some Turkish media outlets.  Stay tuned, I will be back later! 

The "press meeting" or press conference went very well.  Gentry Humphrey and Dale Allen of Jordan Brand spoke to the media about this year's Jordan Brand Classic tour and answered questions.  It was pretty amazing to watch the event across two languages.  Questions to Gentry and Dale were translated to English by a lady sitting in a sound-proof booth (which was constructed just for the event) and their responses were tranlated back into Turkish.  All members of the media, as well as Gentry and Dale wore headsets.  As a result, it flowed very well.  You can tell that the Turkish media is already excited about this summer's World Championships, given their turnout.  Later today we have our player orientation.  It is still amazing to see such tall 16-year-old players, inlcuding at least one seven-footer.