Grady Thompson has an ‘amazing experience’ on Brazil Tour

Editor’s note: Princeton’s Grady Thompson played for the USA D-3 Basketball Team on its 2025 Brazil Tour from July 7-15. He will be a junior at the University of Dubuque, returning as the Spartans’ leading scorer. He shared his experiences on his trip to Brazil with the BCR.

I recently got to play for the USA D-3 Basketball Team on its 2025 Brazil Tour. The trip was such an amazing experience and I’m super grateful I was able to go. Played some good teams and some not so good teams, but made friends and had experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Here’s a look at our journey.

Day 1 – We landed in Brazil at 9:15 a.m. local time (7:15 a.m. our time). I managed to get about four hours of sleep on the plane, though it was pretty cramped for all of us. After landing, we took a bus to the hotel, where we were able to rest for a couple of hours before heading to lunch and then to our game against Sorocaba, a B-Tier professional team.

Several of their players were 7 feet tall, and none of them spoke English. We lost 76–68, but we actually led by 5 at halftime even though we were down 15 at the end of the first quarter. I scored 16 points. The game was extremely physical. If I played like that in the U.S., I would’ve fouled out in the first two minutes. Our coach originally rotated players every 5 minutes, but we were so exhausted that we asked to switch to 3-minute rotations so we could play harder. We ended up sticking with that rotation for the rest of the week.

Day 2 - We just did some resting, shopping, and watched the girls game because ours was canceled.

Day 3 - We flew from São Paulo to Rio De Janeiro and spent most of the day on the beach.

Day 4 - We visited famous landmark Christ the Redeemer. It was a super cool experience. We later that day played the Brazil Naval Academy team at the Navy Base. We beat them 114-29. Although it was a blowout it was still an honor to get to play them.

Day 5 - We had an early game against Botafoga, a well known club team in Brazil. We had a slow start being down as much as 17 in the first quarter. In the second quarter we turned it on and cut the lead to 1 at halftime. After that it was us the rest of the way winning the game 87-63.

After the game we were able to go to a soccer game. It was Flamengo (Rio) vs São Paulo FC, which is the biggest rivalry game in Brazil. It was such a cool experience.

Day 6 - We had another early game, but it wasn’t much of a game as we beat Jacarepagua by 95. We still made the most of it, but I was a little disappointed with that game, but a win is a win.

Day 7 - Our last game was on Day 6 so the last 2 days was just for adventure. We went to sugar loaf mountain which had some of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen. After that we did some shopping and spent the rest of the day on the beach.

Day 8 - This day was our last day, but we were able to squeeze in one more cool landmark by going to the famous Lapa Steps. It was pretty cool. After that we went back to the hotel and packed our bags to head to the airport.