Fresno State will play on a new court this season at the Save Mart Center, a nice perk at the outdated on-campus arena. But they also are taking a summer tour to the Bahamas, and that figures to be a much bigger benefit for coach Vance Walberg and the Bulldogs as they head into the Pac-12 Conference.<\/p>\n
NCAA rules allow Division I basketball teams taking international tours, 10 practices at home and as many as 10 games against professional club teams, national teams or foreign universities, though most teams that tour play only three to four games. The Bulldogs will play three on an eight-day trip, all against local club teams.<\/p>\n
A floor with no dead spots is one thing. But with the NCAA transfer portal and high roster turnover across college basketball, the additional time on the court, particularly at this time of the year, can only help a program that has struggled to 13-19 and 6-26 finishes the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have 14 new players this year,\u201d Walberg said. \u201cJust having those 10 extra days of practice and the exhibition games, it\u2019s going to help us tremendously compared to getting them here during August, and then you have 10 weeks basically to see them and then try to play them. This trip is a big, big, plus for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Summer tours were a once every four years luxury, but a NCAA rule change in April now allows teams to travel internationally every year. Walberg, who has had to recruit a new roster in each of his first three seasons at Fresno State, said he intends to make use of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou only get eight hours a week (of skill-related instruction and strength and conditioning sessions) during the summer. But if you have the 10 practices, plus the eight hours a week during the summer, that really helps. It\u2019s great to have the time together, and I think it\u2019s a great experience for the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fresno State last took a summer tour in 2015, a 10-day trip to Italy. They went 3-0 on the tour, in between stops in Florence, Lake Como, Milan, Rome, Venice and Verona. They saw the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel.<\/p>\n
It will not be all basketball for the Bulldogs in the Bahamas, either. Walberg said they will practice once, on Monday, and have film sessions after the three games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great bonding,\u201d Walberg said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to have everybody there \u2014 some of our European kids don\u2019t have their full visas yet. But, No. 1, I want them to have fun. And, it gives me a chance to see them do certain things, which I think is really critical. That\u2019s probably the biggest thing. But the camaraderie, the eight days together on the road is a nice deal for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresno State will play on a new court this season at the Save Mart Center, a nice perk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-414860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}