Carleton senior point guard Jake Phillips shares his first post as a guest blogger for the Double-A Zone. A four-year starter for the Knights, Jake helped lead the program to its first Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular-season title in 40 years and first-ever NCAA tournament appearance last winter. Jake is the school???s all-time leader in three-point field goal percentage and the physics major has aspirations of becoming an engineer after graduation.

I will start out by introducing myself. I am a senior physics major at Carleton College in Northfield, MN (just south of the twin cities) and the point guard of the men's basketball team. I went to high school in Brainerd, MN, which is located in the central part of the state. Like many college seniors, I am trying to decide exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life, which has led to some job interviews but nothing definite at this point.

As for school, we are currently on break both from classes and basketball which means I have gotten some quality time at home with the family before Christmas. It is nice for a few days but I am already itching to get back to school for basketball.

We have had a little bit of a slow start this season after a very successful past year which saw Carleton win its first conference title in nearly 40 years, as well as our first national tournament appearance in school history. We started the year with three games in Hawaii and although we lost all three, losing two significant halftime leads in the process, it was still a fun trip. Minnesota is about as far away from the ocean and hot weather as it gets, so the team had a blast in the sun and on the beach. Since Hawaii we have been playing better basketball including a big win last Wednesday. We beat a very good Wisconsin-La Crosse team in overtime and hope to build on that win when we get back to school on the 26th.

That's all for now. I will probably give my next update when we start playing games again at the end of December. Merry Christmas to everyone!