A foreign tour like the one the Murray State Racers’ men’s basketball team is on can be helpful in the development of a team. Especially with a team that has 15 newcomers and a brand new coaching staff.

The Racers landed in the Bahamas on Friday, beginning a seven-day stretch where the team gets invaluable extra time around each other, both on and off the court.

“It’s just an awesome learning process for our staff, for our players, just what it looks like when we go on the road,” head coach Ryan Miller said before his team’s final practice before taking off for the trip.

It will continue what players say is a successful summer. Senior guard Javon Jackson said the team has quickly gelled together as a unit.

“Everybody’s been clicking, we’ve been enjoying everything, workouts, everybody’s been hanging out,” Jackson, who transferred to the Racers from UIC, said. “Any and everything you can do in Kentucky, we’ve been doing, so everybody has been enjoying each other.”

On the court, it’ll be a first look at the different lineups and the type of fast-paced system Miller will deploy.

“We got 15 really good basketball players, so defining roles is going to be a challenge for us and we’re doing that every day this summer and through the Bahamas trip,” Miller said. “We’ll tinker with lineups, we’ll play different people in different positions and all over the place just to see what we’ve got and throw a little adversity out there and see how our guys handle it and how our staff handles it.”

Miller said the trip will be good for his team for multiple reasons. One, so the team can bond off the court, with an example coming Saturday, when the team hosted a youth basketball camp for kids in the Bahamas. But it’s also a chance for the team to see what it’s like to gameplan and prepare for an opponent.

“We’re preparing Calgary, the first game we play out there, like we were playing Omaha November 3rd,” Miller said. “Getting those roles developed now is big time, because we don’t want to have those roles developed in October when we go play Xavier in an exhibition game. We want them developed now, and having that opportunity to do that now is huge.”

So when the Racers take the court against the University of Calgary Monday morning, Miller and the rest of the team say they’re excited to see how far the team has come over the summer, and the work the team has to do the rest of the way leading up to the regular season opener.

“How fast and up-tempo we play and the size we have, I think that’s one thing that’s going to stand out in the Valley is the size we have,” Jackson said. “But we’ve still got 15 new guys and a whole new roster. We still have to come in here and build a team and be ready to come out here and still win, because the Valley’s not easy to win in.”

“I’m excited just to see a little bit of what we’re made of and how far we’ve come in these eight weeks in this summer,” sophomore guard KJ Tenner added. “Really though, you look at this trip as even more bonding with the guys, it’s a long year ahead, so basically using this trip to get even closer with the guys because we’re going to have a lot of ups and downs so you’ve got to have a true bond.”

Miller views this trip as a chance to continue building his vision for what Murray State basketball will be like.

“[The] points of emphasis [are] just building our culture, defining our culture, defining our championship culture, and that’s every day, through work and practice,” Miller said. “We’re trying to be a fast-paced offensive basketball team. We’re trying to be a very unselfish basketball team, both offensively and defensively, and we’re trying to be a tough, gritty, both mental and physical, team… It takes a lot of effort, and it takes doing things that are uncommon, and that’s what we plan to do.”

 

The Racers will tip off their first game against Calgary Monday at 10:00 a.m. You can watch the game live on YouTube at bdG Sports.

 

Cover photo courtesy Dave Winder / Murray State Athletics