Some people have been asking about the Italy trip. I got ahold of itinerary. It doesn’t include specific venues but does have game dates and the cities they’re staying in.
They’re scheduled to arrive in Rome on August 11th.
Game #1 is on the 13th in Rome
Game #2 is on the 16th in Florence
Game #3 on the 18th in Rapallo
Game #4 on the 19th also while n Rapallo
Lots of sight seeing and recommended restaurants in between. Should be an awesome trip.
Very interesting…thanks for that. Gotta keep that in mind. Hopefully I can break loose and watch some of those in person.
Going on tour brings teams together.
Great opportunity for building team cohesiveness.
Do they play Serie A level teams or lower level Italian teams?
Assuming they’re not….but any chance these games are open to the public?
About 8 years ago while working at the US base in Vicenza, Italy, I recognized Tom Izzo and his players were having lunch at the food court as they later practiced in our gym and were going to play a pro team that night as part of their tour. They were very relaxed and enjoying themselves and yes, definitely a team building moment.
I’ll be on Caserme Ederle & Del Din in 3-weeks… I’ll say hi for you.
Sounds good, it was Ederle where they hung out and played. Izzo was randomly talking with some people there in front of the bx - a real likable guy. I didn’t want to bother him. Shorter than you might think.
Dont know if we will see any of the games or not but this board would LOVE the combinations of players they will play in these type games. Shit Traudt may be offered on the spot in Italy to turn pro
Games in Spain were a mix of very local “pro” teams and barnstorming type teams. Eg, there was a Spanish guy who had just graduated from Miami. Pretty decent. Quality among the teams varied quite a bit
Re: open to the public - in Spain, games were open to the public, but not publicized. A couple message board posters on the Sabre managed to follow the team around and see all the games, but they had to be pretty persistent to figure out game times/locations. Games were not streamed, even though other schools who did more or less the same trip (Nova) did stream. I will let everyone take a wild guess where we will fall on that spectrum.
Looking forward to that 4K stream with Final 4 level presentation.
Rapallo is doable for me, but only just as we arrive in Milan on the 17th. But somehow I’ll have to convince my jet-lagged wife to make a four-hour round trip to watch a ball game. That hurdle may be insurmountable…
Edit: Thanks HGN!
Let her sleep at the hotel and go yourself. Win Win man
Trying to do the math to justify taking a trip to Italy two weeks after moving to the UK….to watch basketball games in random high school gyms that I don’t know that I’ll be able to attend
Man now i wanna go on tour again. Could do a 4 day tour catch a game or 2 for 1200ish i bet. Likely less.
Close, yet so far.
Wow, you too? I’m PCS’ing in UK in late July (if all goes well) but all the settling in will deny me the freedom to get out there, I’m afraid. I’ll be calculating things as well.
The only thing I have going for me is that my wife loves Italy (we used to live there) so if there are weekend games, I’ve got a shot.
In bocca al lupo!
Go Go Go. I know people
Wonder if they will play former Texas Tech Red Raider Davide Morreti, you guys remember him, Dre knocked the ball out of his hand and his pinky touched the ball last.