Men's Basketball To Take Summer Tour of Australia
7/29/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
July 29, 2005
WASHINGTON, DC -- The George Washington University men's basketball team will play five exhibition games and tour Australia during the 10-day span from August 13-24. Coach Karl Hobbs' squad, which returns four of five starters from last year's 22-8 Atlantic 10 championship team, has been ranked as high as 11th in the country according to one preseason poll (CBSSportsLine.com).
The travel party will include nine returning players from last year's team. GW's three incoming freshmen, as well as LSU transfer Regis Koundjia, will not make the trip as they will not yet be eligible by mid-August.
The competition will include three games against two members of Australia's professional National Basketball League (NBL), the Sydney Kings and the Cairns Taipans. The second exhibition game will be against the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), which is Australia's Olympic Training program located in Canberra. More than half of the 620 members of the Australian Olympic team that competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics were current or former AIS athletes.
Schedule of games in Australia:
Tue., Aug. 16 vs. Central Coast Waves at 7:00 p.m.* at Gosford
Wed., Aug. 17 vs. Australia Institute of Sport at 1:00 p.m.* at Sydney
Thurs., Aug. 18 vs. Sydney Kings at 7:30 p.m.* at Sutherland Stadium at Sydney
Sun., Aug. 21 vs. Cairns Taipans at 1:00 p.m.* at Cairns
Tue., Aug. 23 vs. Cairns Taipans at 7:30 p.m.* at Cairns
*Australia time is approximately 15 hours ahead of EDT
In addition to GW Basketball's Australian trip, Hobbs also is serving as a court coach at the 2005 USA Men's World University Games Team Trials, July 28-31, at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO.
GW (22-8, 11-5 A-10) won the 2005 Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season West Division title and the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Colonials were eliminated by Georgia Tech in the first round of the Albuquerque Regional on Mar. 18 in Nashville.
