NCAA Basketball: Importance of annual preseason foreign tours for teams

NCAA Basketball teams are about to participate in a “foreign tour” before the season starts. What are the benefits for the teams who do this?

Every summer, we see numerous NCAA Basketball programs embark on a foreign tour right about this time a year. A chance for the team to travel overseas to play against some foreign competition. It’s a great chance for coaches and fans to take a look at what kind of team they’re going to see for the upcoming season. The NCAA limits the number of trips a program can embark on to just once every four years.

“The vast majority of the student-athletes might never get a chance to go overseas… They can only go every four years, so ideally for a program everybody would get to experience it. Incoming freshmen can go, so when they’re graduating seniors they would’ve already been gone when another freshmen class goes. That’s kind of the way it’s conceived. There’s a basketball and educational piece to it.” – Jason Sarkies (Tour Director of Basketball Travelers)

In 2019 there are close to 70 programs who will embark on a foreign tour, teams ranging from Texas Tech and Syracuse to Stony Brook and Abiline Christian. While some teams have already completed their foreign tours back at the beginning of July a majority of teams will embark on their trips in the coming weeks or are currently overseas. With that being said there are some important things to note about what programs can, and cannot do on their trips.

To clarify, a foreign tour is considered by the NCAA to be a tour outside of an US Commonwealth or US Territory, places like Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands would not be considered Foreign Tours (Bylaw 17.29.1.1). If you remember last summer, Duke Basketball went to Canada for a pre-season tour with Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett. While Canada is close, it is not a Commonwealth or US Territory meaning that it still counts the same as a tour to Italy or China. Duke will then have to wait until the summer of 2022 before they embark on their next foreign.

If you’re following along with your favorite team and see that an undergraduate or graduate transfer is not joining the team for the tour, the NCAA permits a NCAA Basketball player to only partake in a foreign tour with one institution. If that transfer has participated in a foreign tour with their previous university, they are unable to participate in another foreign tour with their new institution. Incoming freshman, however, is able to participate in their team’s foreign tours.

Teams are allowed no more than 10 practices prior to the foreign tour and are limited to a maximum of 10 games, those games can not be against other US teams per the NCAA. Coaches are able to get extra practices with their teams and compete against other teams. Coaches have left nothing but positive reviews about the experiences that they and their teams have experienced. Coach Bruce Pearl had this to say after Auburn’s tour last August,

“I think one of the greatest rules that the NCAA has is allowing those foreign trips, from a cultural standpoint, from an academic standpoint,” Pearl said. “There’s nothing like it in the world. The guys have said that we went to Italy as a team, we came back as a family.”

Teams get a chance to build some real chemistry on and off the court on these trips, it paid dividends for Pearl’s Tigers this past season. Auburn lost an absolute heartbreaker to Virginia in the Final Four on a foul called on a contested three from Virginia guard Kyle Guy. Would Auburn have been in that Final Four team without that foreign tour? It’s hard to say, but judging by what Pearl had to say at the conclusion of their tour last season, there’s no doubt that tour put Auburn in a better position at the start of the season than had they not had it.

I think that’s the case with most teams, no coach is going to turn down this sort of opportunity for his team. The foreign tours are a chance for the players to travel the world, play ball, and grow together. Bruce Pearl’s team certainly reaped the benefits from it last year and I’m sure the close to 70 teams going this summer will see the same.