ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – Not surprisingly for a coach who took his team to the Arabian Desert, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd hasn’t seen a drop of rainfall in two days at Abu Dhabi.
But he’s not sure he’s seen the sun, either.
So hot and sticky that the city’s outdoor dining terraces are largely closed, Abu Dhabi has been shrouded in haze that results reportedly because of how human-caused smog can exacerbate the shifting sand.
At 1 a.m. Friday morning, according to AccuWeather, Abu Dhabi was sitting at 93 degrees with a 62% humidity level called “dangerously humid.” The air quality index rated at 132, into the “unhealthy zone,” too.
The haze is not going away.
“You almost feel like you’re on another planet,” Lloyd said, after UA beat UAE Select 127-90 on Thursday. “I mean, I just don’t know what that is out there, if that’s some sort of fog or mist or evaporation. I don’t know. I would love to know what it is. It kind of sits on the city there and with the sand everywhere … but it’s cool.”
Evacuation plan
Another strategy for avoiding the Abu Dhabi heat and humidity blast other than staying indoors, as Arizonans can relate to, is just getting out of the place.
That’s partly what made it hard for organizer Tarek Abboud to put together the UAE Select team that faced Arizona on Thursday.
Most basketball leagues around the world are in the offseason in July and August when college teams take the foreign tours they are allowed once every four season. Usually, organizers can at least put together what talent remains in the area to form a viable opponent but there just hasn’t been much talent hanging around the UAE in August for obvious reasons.
“Most of the players are on vacation. They are outside the country,” Abboud said. “And (now) in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it’s challenging a little bit because it’s so hot. Most of them leave the country and they come back in October.”
Arizona’s Keshad Johnson and a player from UAE Select exchange greetings prior to the teams’ matchup Thursday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Veesaar getting close
It’s been a rough summer for Estonian big man Henri Veesaar, who missed most of the FIBA U20 European Championships after spraining his ankle and, just as he was near a full return, came down with a flu-like illness last week in Jerusalem.
But Veesaar went through warmups before the Wildcats’ game Thursday and Lloyd said there’s a chance he would play Saturday against Lebanon’s national team.
“He caught some sort of virus and he’s been battling that for a couple of days. It’s kind of been hanging on,” Lloyd said. “So we’ll see what he looks like (Friday) and maybe he can try to go that last game.”
Night owls
Despite having what was a 2 a.m. tipoff Thursday in Tucson, Arizona still attracted 300 fans to watch the livestream via YouTube.
The archived version, naturally, was much more popular. As of 3 p.m. (Arizona time) on Thursday, the Arizona’s YouTube page for the UAE Select game showed 6,300 views.
