CSU, GB Get Head Start with Undefeated Foreign Trips

INDIANAPOLIS – College basketball teams will go to great lengths to gain an advantage over the opposition.

Case in point: it’s nearly 1,500 miles from Green Bay, Wis., to the Bahamas. And to go from Cleveland to Amsterdam to Belgium to Paris, over 4,100 miles must be traversed.

Those were the destinations of a pair of Horizon League men’s basketball teams this summer as Green Bay and Cleveland State embarked on separate but respectively undefeated foreign trips. The Phoenix went 3-0 under the tropical Bahamas sun and the Vikings went 5-0 during a tour of central Europe.

“The trip was a trip I felt we needed,” Cleveland State forward Anton Grady said. “I think we took good advantage of it as far as gaining game experience and coming together as a team. What we gained out of that trip was really valuable. I think we figured out a lot of things about our team: what we can do, what we need to work on [and] the roles some people are going to play on the team.”

Grady’s coach agreed that the game experience was important – but also felt the experience of the trip itself was just as important.

“The ability to come together as a team, that’s very important on those kinds of trips, where you develop some camaraderie and some team unity,” Vikings head coach Gary Waters said. “I think our kids really banded together well. They stayed together in most places and I just think it was really a team-bonding experience.

“Secondly, I thought they really got a chance to learn about the places we went. They experience their culture and, in my estimation, they really intertwined with the people there.”

One aspect of the trip that helped the Vikings bond with the locals – and with each other – was a lack of familiar distractions, namely technology.

“The biggest difference was that we couldn’t use our phones,” Grady said. “In this generation, everybody’s on their phone all day, so we were over there and couldn’t use our phones and it made us talk to each other more and get to know each other better. As the season comes along, we’ll build off that relationship we have with each other to build more trust on the court.”

The Green Bay basketball team needed to take that bonding to another level after it was revealed that 7-foot-1 senior Alec Brown would be unable to play in the Bahamas due to an ankle injury.

“It was a surprise for us that we weren’t prepared for. But [playing well without Brown] means a lot,” Phoenix guard Keifer Sykes said. “There was a lot missing on that floor as far as lane versatility, what he can do on the block defensively and offensively. Even with that big piece missing, we were able to come together and win games and that shows a lot for our team this upcoming year.”

Now, both teams are back on campus, getting back into the swing of classes before getting back on the practice court. Still, the experiences of their respective summer trips will stay with the teams.

“It was a great experience because it was a whole new life that we had never seen. Maybe you thought of it, but you never picture yourself being there one day,” Grady said. “For us to be over there, if guys had thoughts of [playing professionally] overseas, they got a chance to see what it might be like. And we got to experience being on the road a lot.”

And playing overseas isn’t unheard of in the Cleveland State program – last year’s lone senior, Tim Kamczyc is with Leeuward in Holland, and Waters said some of the teams Cleveland State played asked about this year’s Vikings seniors.

For the immediate future, however, the trips impacted both the upcoming basketball season and the lives of the young men who got to experience new cultures and new locations.

“We got to be together an extra two weeks in the summer – one for practice and one in the Bahamas,” Sykes said. “We are all appreciative for the experience. A lot of us had never been out of the country; we all had to buy brand new passports. The trip itself was really good, and the basketball part was another advantage for us.”