MBB: Other Teams' Summer Practices and Exhibitions

[brevity]

This could be a short-lived thread, but I thought we could counter the dead month of August with any info about other college basketball teams that hold open summer practices or take overseas trips to play exhibition games.

Kentucky

Last week the Wildcats held an open practice in Rupp Arena that doubled as part of a flood relief telethon. Here are some highlights:



Here's a longer video of the same practice; it's a less crisp picture. Kentucky is preparing for a series of games in the Bahamas that start Wednesday, and you can watch or stream each one. All times Eastern.

Game 1 vs. Dominican Republic U-22 team, Wednesday 8/10 at 7pm on SECN
(replays Thursday 8/11 at 5am and 1pm)

Game 2 vs. Monterrey Tech, Thursday 8/11 at 7pm on SECN
(replays Friday 8/12 at 5am and 1pm)

Game 3 vs. Carleton, Saturday 8/13 at 6pm on SECN
(replays Sunday 8/13 at 5am and 10am)

Game 4 vs. Bahamas National Team, Sunday 8/13 at noon on SECN
(replays Monday 8/14 at 3am and 1pm)

Nice lineup, but it's clear that Kentucky is avoiding a rematch with the Pavo Real players of San Pedro University in Nueva Jersey.

Stadium has a list of about 60 teams that are starting their preseason with an overseas tour. I'll try to post what I can find, even if it's a brief recap.

[brevity]

Arkansas

A few months later, and Duke's Elite Eight opponent is about as recognizable as Duke is. There are 11 new Razorbacks on this team, six freshmen (including three McDonald's All-Americans) and five transfers. They held an open practice for the media July 27. Here's the best video I found, from HawgBeat:



Don Johnson is already excited. "HawgBeat! I'm looking for a HawgBeat! Beating like mine..." There are shorter videos from other angles here and here.

Arkansas is touring Spain and Italy. They played their first game earlier today, a 108-59 win against Valencia Seleccion, which I assume is Spain's version of the Syracuse Orange. There are some highlights here.

They play three more games this week. All times Eastern. Live streaming is available through FloHoops, which is a $30 monthly subscription. That's probably a deal breaker, unless you're high on the Hog. ("I swear, Hillary, that charge on our credit card bill was for Arkansas basketball.")

Game 2: vs. Barcelona Todo-Estrella in Barcelona, Spain (Thursday 8/11 at 2:30pm)

Game 3: vs. Orange 1 Basket Bassano in Como, Italy (Saturday 8/13 at 1:30pm)

Game 4: vs. Bakken Bears in Como, Italy (Monday 8/15 at 1pm)

I will say that Only One Razorback Podcast streamed today's game on about a 10-hour delay, starting around 10:15pm ET. The YouTube link seems to work; not sure if they'll do the same for the other games.

[brevity]

Virginia

Based on their Twitter account, UVA leaves today for Italy. From Virginia Sports:

The Virginia men’s basketball team will play four exhibition games during its trip to Italy from Aug. 10-20. Highlighting the tour will be a pair of games against the European dominant KK Mega Mozzart of Belgrade, Serbia.

The Cavaliers will play games in Rome (Aug. 13), Florence (Aug. 15) and Rapallo (Aug. 18-19). UVA will also visit Portofino during the 10-day tour.

No actual details or TV information. Why do we have an ACC Network if they don't pursue new ACC content? What's really sad is that next Monday -- the day they have a game in Florence -- is Virginia Day on ACCN, and they're mostly showing old UVA football games all day.

Anyway, all I got for now is a very brief practice video from August 1:



Wake Forest

Meanwhile, Wake is wrapping up their trip to London, Paris, and Amsterdam, based on their Twitter account and the tag #deacsabroad. It's mostly sightseeing and a little basketball.

All I could find were a longer recap and a shorter recap of a game they played against the Barking Abbey London Lions. (Barking Abbey is basically the same as Downton Abbey, but with dogs.)

No published schedule, no TV. From this fan thread, it looks like they also played a Paris All-Star team, and their third game was cancelled.

[awhom111]

Back on Monday, Auburn lost to Israel's senior national team 95-86, which I know is similar to hypothetical games that people have been talking about here.

It did make me think back about the 2015-16 Michigan State team, led by seniors Denzel Valentine, Bryn Forbes, and Matt Costello, now a national team star in his own right after receiving snap naturalization from the Ivory Coast. Before their season, they played a serious exhibition tournament in Italy, losing to Russia 93-75, the hosts 90-69, and (the other) Georgia 71-70.

[proelitedota]

Kentucky beat the DR national select team by nearly 50. DR is ranked at 20 on FIBA.

[brevity]

Kentucky barely edged the Dominican Republic Select Team by a score of 108-56. I'm not going to provide nightly recaps for these overseas exhibitions like I did with the NBA Summer League, but in this case there actually is a box score. I also found three sets of highlights within an hour of completion.



Also try here and here. Say what you will about Kentucky basketball, but they try to provide a supply to meet a serious demand.

Kentucky beat the DR national select team by nearly 50. DR is ranked at 20 on FIBA.

The Select (U-22) Team is different from the National Team. I compared the roster from the above box score to the FIBA roster to be sure.

Back on Monday, Auburn lost to Israel's senior national team 95-86, which I know is similar to hypothetical games that people have been talking about here.

It did make me think back about the 2015-16 Michigan State team, led by seniors Denzel Valentine, Bryn Forbes, and Matt Costello, now a national team star in his own right after receiving snap naturalization from the Ivory Coast. Before their season, they played a serious exhibition tournament in Italy, losing to Russia 93-75, the hosts 90-69, and (the other) Georgia 71-70.

Those exhibition losses no doubt prepared the Spartans for the 2016 NCAA Tournament, where they lost to 15-seed Middle Tennessee State in the first round.

I dropped the ball on Auburn, I guess. They finished their tour of Israel, and I believe those games were also on the SEC Network. Assuming Bruce Pearl avoided an international incident by keeping his shirt on, I may put together a recap for the Tigers at some point.

[arnie]

Kentucky barely edged the Dominican Republic Select Team by a score of 108-56. I'm not going to provide nightly recaps for these overseas exhibitions like I did with the NBA Summer League, but in this case there actually is a box score. I also found three sets of highlights within an hour of completion.



Also try here and here. Say what you will about Kentucky basketball, but they try to provide a supply to meet a serious demand.



The Select (U-22) Team is different from the National Team. I compared the roster from the above box score to the FIBA roster to be sure.



Those exhibition losses no doubt prepared the Spartans for the 2016 NCAA Tournament, where they lost to 15-seed Middle Tennessee State in the first round.

I dropped the ball on Auburn, I guess. They finished their tour of Israel, and I believe those games were also on the SEC Network. Assuming Bruce Pearl avoided an international incident by keeping his shirt on, I may put together a recap for the Tigers at some point.

So help me understand, these b-ball games were on the football centric SEC network and the ACC network doesn’t bother with similar games? I guess we’re really a women’s soccer conference after all.

[brevity]

Kentucky beat Monterrey Tech 102-40. Highlight videos here and here. Also replays on SECN tomorrow morning and afternoon.

So help me understand, these b-ball games were on the football centric SEC network and the ACC network doesn’t bother with similar games? I guess we’re really a women’s soccer conference after all.

Pretty much. Someone on the Wake Forest fan thread I linked above couldn't believe that 5 ACC teams were playing exhibitions this summer, and the ACCN ignored them all.

To put this in perspective, right now Arkansas fans who are paying $30 for a FloHoops monthly subscription are getting games filmed by a single cameraman in poorly lit arenas. The picture has a FloHoops logo in the top right corner and a score on the bottom. There's a pair of announcers still in America, watching and commenting on their feed. Here's a replay of today's 99-86 win against Catalan Elite:



ACCNX (ACC Network Extra), which is inactive most of this month, could have done the same very easily. If they had, any ACC fan with access to ESPN would have been able to stream those games.

Florida State

The Seminoles finished their trip to Canada today, winning three games. No YouTube videos to embed, but some coverage is available on their Twitter account and on Seminoles.com.

FSU 86, Ottawa 66 (box score)
FSU 98, Carleton 64 (article, box score, photos)
FSU 90, McGill 74 (article, box score)

According to Tomahawk Nation, incoming freshman and projected 2023 lottery pick Baba Miller is still in Europe, and didn't take part in the trip.

NC State

Okay, I guess now we're saying the 2022-2023 season is the year the Wolfpack turn it around. Their Twitter says they have returned to Raleigh today after going 2-0 in the Bahamas. I hope they liked playing there, because they fly back around Thanksgiving for the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.

NCSU 92, Bahamas Select 81 (article)
NCSU 81, Puerto Rico 69 (article)

Terquavion Smith, projected to be a 2023 first rounder, left the second game with a leg cramp. He was reported to be fine after the game, and the team played well without him.

Clemson

They return home Saturday after visiting Paris, Normandy, Nice, and Monaco. I guess we can call them Le Tigre when they play in France.

letigre.jpg

They beat the same team twice with nearly the same score.

Clemson 92, Paris All-Stars 50 (article, box score)
Clemson 93, Paris All-Stars 50 (article, box score)
Clemson 92, Azurea Club de Golfe 74 (article, box score)

[brevity]

Let's take a look at a pair of non-conference teams that are on Duke's schedule.

Oregon State

Duke's opening round opponent in the Phil Knight Legacy tournament this Thanksgiving went 3-28 (1-19 Pac-12) last season, after a surprising Elite Eight appearance the season before. I know next to nothing about this year's squad.

The Beavers go to Italy next week, and I'm finding that details are scarce. No dates, no opponents, probably no viewing options. The team tweeted a practice video, so that's something. If there are any significant updates, I'll post them here.

Ohio State

The Buckeyes come to Cameron for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge on November 30, just three days after Duke finishes their tournament in Portland. Malaki Branham and EJ Liddell went pro, but Ohio State added 10 new players, including four freshmen ranked 47, 52, 54, and 65 in the RSCI.

They completed a Bahamas trip a few days ago, and today they posted this 2-minute video, an even split between basketball coverage and Atlantis Resort playtime:



Ohio State 72, Egypt 68 (article)
Ohio State 75, Puerto Rico 68 (article)

I believe those opponents were the FIBA national teams. The team's website put up a Bahamas Blog detailing their adventures.

[brevity]

I dropped the ball on Auburn, I guess. They finished their tour of Israel, and I believe those games were also on the SEC Network. Assuming Bruce Pearl avoided an international incident by keeping his shirt on, I may put together a recap for the Tigers at some point.

Auburn

No more Jabari Smith or Walker Kessler, but Bruce Pearl added 4 new players, including the RSCI #23 and #33 freshmen. Here's a short video of their summer debuts.

The Tigers went 2-1, losing to the National Team. Deni Avdija, who has played two seasons with the Washington Wizards, had 25 for Israel.



Auburn 119, Israel U20 Team 56 (article, video 1, video 2)

Auburn 107, Israel Select Team 71 (article, video 1, video 2)

Israel National Team 95, Auburn 86 (article, video 1 above, video 2)

Without getting into the details, a trip to Israel adds a significant religious dimension to overseas culture. Auburn's junior center Dylan Cardwell posted two blog entries on the team's website here and here.

[awhom111]

I guess the Arkansas example shows that ESPN does not own the exclusive rights to these and I guess they would need to decide to purchase the rights from the school to put them on ACC Network, SEC Network, or any of the main ESPN channels. Fortunately, we are one of the teams that they would probably work with to get games on broadcast, although they purchased the rights and put our Canada tour on ESPN+, but I cannot imagine there are that many others unless it was relatively cost-neutral. TV-quality production is pretty questionable in some of these venues. I think we had help from Brennan Besser's father's company to get everything together for our last trip.

[proelitedota]

Bama beat the Chinese national team, which is ranked 29 on FIBA.

It's pretty evident that top college teams can rank in the top 20 in FIBA.

[JasonEvans]

Bama beat the Chinese national team, which is ranked 29 on FIBA.

It's pretty evident that top college teams can rank in the top 20 in FIBA.

Was it the full Chinese team? Were all their players playing? In many of these "friendly" matchups, top players will skip the competition. Heck, for the Asia Cup (a tournament of some note) the Aussie team did not include Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, or Matisse Thybulle.

I think a top 20 FIBA team playing their best players would be among the top few teams in college basketball, fairly easily. Canada is #18 in the FIBA rankings. I'm fairly sure RJ Barrett, Dillon Brooks, SGA, Jamal Murray, Andrew Wiggins and the rest of that team would be preseason #1 in college hoops

[proelitedota]

Was it the full Chinese team? Were all their players playing? In many of these "friendly" matchups, top players will skip the competition. Heck, for the Asia Cup (a tournament of some note) the Aussie team did not include Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, or Matisse Thybulle.

I think a top 20 FIBA team playing their best players would be among the top few teams in college basketball, fairly easily. Canada is #18 in the FIBA rankings. I'm fairly sure RJ Barrett, Dillon Brooks, SGA, Jamal Murray, Andrew Wiggins and the rest of that team would be preseason #1 in college hoops

Based on the box score it was the full team.

[AGDukesky]

If anyone cares, the Kentucky games are being shown on SEC Network right now

[brevity]

If anyone cares, the Kentucky games are being shown on SEC Network right now

Kentucky 118, Carleton 56 (article, box score, highlights)

Kentucky 98, Bahamas National Team 74 (article, box score, highlights).

The Wildcats have completed their summer tour. Expect a warm welcome from Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops at the Lexington airport.

Bama beat the Chinese national team, which is ranked 29 on FIBA.

It's pretty evident that top college teams can rank in the top 20 in FIBA.

Was it the full Chinese team? Were all their players playing? In many of these "friendly" matchups, top players will skip the competition.

Based on the box score it was the full team.

Could you link to a box score of Alabama vs. China? I have not been able to find it.

Alabama

The Crimson Tide visited Barcelona and Paris, playing and winning three games. The team website has a blog that recaps their activities. RSCI #11 Brandon Miller, a projected 2023 first rounder, was the leading or co-leading scorer in all three wins, and averaged 22 points.

The only YouTube videos I could find for the China game were not in English:



Alabama 108, Spain Select Team 64 (article, box score, highlights)
Alabama 120, Lithuania B Team 61 (article, box score, highlights)
Alabama 89, China National Team 77 (article, highlights above)

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Baylor

The Bears kicked off the college tours of Summer 2022 in the beginning of July (!) by playing in something called GLOBL JAM, a tournament of international U-23 teams that took place in Toronto. (Apparently there's no A in GLOBL, just as there is no I in TEAM.) Baylor represented the United States and played games against Brazil, Canada, and Italy. It was televised, at least in Canada. If GLOBL JAM sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because scottdude8 briefly mentioned it in the Tyrese Proctor thread here.

Baylor played five games: three round robin games, a semifinal, and a final. They won the semifinal and lost the other four. According to this article, injuries limited the team to a nine-man rotation that included five newcomers. One of those newcomers was impact freshman Keyonte George, a 2023 lottery prospect and #7 in the RSCI. He scored 37 in the semifinal win and averaged 22.8 points in the tournament.



As you can see, Keyonte George attempts to tie the game at the end, but it rims "oot". Why does the ball look like a pretzel bun?

Game 1: Italy 88, Baylor 77 (article, box score, highlights)

Game 2: Canada 69, Baylor 67 (article, box score, highlights)

Game 3: Brazil 73, Baylor 71 (article, box score, highlights)

Semifinal: Baylor 93, Canada 87 (article, box score, highlights)

Final: Brazil 77, Baylor 73 (article, box score, highlights above)

[CameronDuke]

Virginia opened its Italy tour with a 76-24 win over Stella Azzurra. Shedrick dropped 13 points and snagged 7 rebounds in the win.

[brevity]

Davidson

You may recall that Davidson was one basket away from playing Duke in the second round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament. A few things have happened since then; both Davidson and Duke are new teams with new coaches.

Matt McKillop started his head coaching tenure with a team trip to Slovenia and Italy. Not much information out there beyond the team's Twitter account.

Before the trip, Coach McKillop the Younger had a breakfast meeting with the Davidson team announcer. They discussed his expectations for the coming season in a 9-minute video here:



So far they have played 2 games in Slovenia, and are in Italy today.

Davidson 91, Zoltasti Troti 46 (tweet)
Davidson 78, Jezica 50 (tweet)

Vanderbilt

The Commodores returned today from a trip to France and Italy. They took the scenic route, with stops in Nice, Monaco, Venice, and Milan. They were done by Friday, so the last couple of days were easy like Sunday morning, which they spent in Lake Como.

Vanderbilt 81, Kameet 54 (article, highlights)
Vanderbilt 86, Orange1 Bassano 56 (article, full game)
Vanderbilt 87, Italy All-Stars 64 (article, highlights)

[brevity]

Wisconsin

Hmm, the Dairy State on a French tour? Forget basketball; I'm wondering if the team is really there to see whether Wisconsin cheese can defeat French cheese in a blind taste test, the way California stunned the wine community in 1976. (They made a movie about it in 2008 called Bottle Shock. Alan Rickman played a real-life wine expert with the name, I kid you not, Steven Spurrier. YouTube is officially showing the full movie for free with ads.)



The team went 4-0 and they return Wednesday, so there's still one more day for an international cheese challenge. None of the games were televised, as their conference is focused on Big Ten Networking rather than the Big Ten Network.

Wisconsin 81, Paris Towers 66 (article, box score)
Wisconsin 80, Lyon Towers 68 (article)
Wisconsin 78, Lyon Towers 47 (article)
Wisconsin 85, Azurea Club 69 (article)

Coverage of the trip is being blogged on the team website. Somehow head coach Greg Gard and assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft have managed not to bully the French yet by going all Ugly American.

Colorado State

Hey, speaking indirectly of Juwan Howard and Michigan, let's take a look at the team they upset in March Madness, 6-seed Colorado State. The Rams won their first 11 games and finished the season 25-6. David Roddy, last season's Mountain West Player of the Year, has since left for the NBA; he was drafted late in the first round by Philadelphia and traded to Memphis.

The team spent the first week of August in Costa Rica, tweeting some vacation photos and presumably playing basketball. They returned more than a week ago, and I couldn't tell you anything about their games because I couldn't find anything. I learned from Troy University's website that Troy, Colorado State, Pepperdine, Charlotte, and Tulane were all in Costa Rica at the same time, and that Troy was playing three games, two against the El Salvador National Team and one against the Costa Rica All-Stars.

As a small consolation, I discovered that Northern Iowa hoops legend Ali Farokhmanesh is an assistant coach with the Rams now.

farokhmanesh.jpg

On the 10th anniversary of his win over Kansas, he and his family re-enacted the clinching play on the CSU court. It's outstanding; putting the crying baby in the Kansas uniform makes it an instant classic.

Memo to Colorado State: you have a good thing here. If you want to remain a big time program, do a better job of covering your program.