Stuart Suss
PhD Student
Posts: 1439
Loc: Chester County, Pennsylva...
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-10-17 06:28 PM - Post#235850
So as not to hijack the Fairfield game thread, I will write separately about the 2013 Penn trip to Italy, which has been the subject of several snide comments within the Fairfield thread.
The 2013 Italy trip was discussed here. The poster, LyleGold, is a regular summer resident of Italy. He attended the games. I invite your attention to Lyle's two posts dated August 23, 2013.
Lyle wrote at the time that the "real pro teams (Serie A and LegaDue Gold) haven't even arrived yet. Pistoia Basket, the top club we were supposed to play, has its medical checks and first practice next Thursday (8/29) and doesn't play an exhibition game until Sept. 7 against Florence, who plays in LegaDue Silver - the third division."
It is my understanding that, in 2013, FIBA, the international basketball federation, changed the start of their regular season, moving it later in the calendar. For that reason, the team training camps that Lyle describes were also moved to later in the calendar.
Again, it is my understanding that these changes in the calendar were announced by FIBA well AFTER Penn had locked into dates for the Italy trip. The timing of the 2013 Penn trip would have been on appropriate dates under prior years' FIBA calendars.
It is also my understanding that Penn was not the only D-1 program that was victimized by this last minute FIBA schedule change. I am informed that one of these other D-1 programs inquired about playing a scrimmage against us in Italy, only to be advised that the NCAA would not permit that scrimmage.
St. Joseph's, for the reasons Lyle describes in his post, was able to avoid this problem because of the special tournament available to them.
The team's record under Jerome Allen speaks for itself. However, I do not believe that what happened in Italy in 2013 was the fault of either Jerome or the athletic department.
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