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Maryland basketball: Schedule for Italian foreign tour released – 247Sports
Maryland men’s basketball’s 10-day foreign training tour to Italy has arrived, and now the Terps have names to match their three opponents.
In their first game Wednesday, the Terps will face the Rome All-Stars at 1 p.m. ET at PalaTellene. Maryland will play its second of three exhibition games on Aug. 4 against the Florence All-Stars at 1 p.m. ET at Palestra Toscanni. The Terps will play their third and final game of the tour on Aug. 7 against the Bassano All-Stars at noon ET at Palazetto dello Sport di Mazzano. A team spokesperson confirmed to InsideMDSports.com that there is no plan to live stream the games, but postgame video content and recaps will be posted. It is unclear who will be playing for each of the three “all-star” teams.
Maryland head coach Kevin Willard spoke to reporters on July 20 to talk about the state of the team ahead of the trip. He hinted that he was not sure what the competition would look like but said the greatest value of the trip lies outside the actual games.
“I have no idea. I really don’t, I have no idea who we’re playing,” Willard said at the time. “It’s kind of irrelevant to me who we’re playing. It’s early August so most of the pros are not back with their teams yet. So it’s usually a total mix-match of what you get. Like I said, I think the real value of these trips are going to experience all the history and the culture that Italy offers and also the 10 days of practice … I won’t even know who we’re playing, I don’t know what dates we’re playing. I’m just more focused on the 10 days of practice.”
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Wednesday will mark the first time that Maryland’s four freshmen — DeShawn Harris-Smith, Jamie Kaiser, Jahnathan Lamothe and Braden Pierce — will play in a Terp uniform against real competition. It will also mark the first Maryland exhibition appearances for Indiana transfer Jordan Geronimo and New Mexico State transfer Mady Traore.
“The games, we’re going to play all 13 guys,” Willard said. “So I’m going to try playing four guards with Mady [Traore]. I’m gonna try to play 7-1, 6-11,6-11, 6-6, and 6-6. So the games will kind of be fun and I’ll be able to experiment. Each one of the assistant coaches are going to coach a game. I’m not going to coach them, I’ll let the assistants coach them. I think it’s a great opportunity for them to be in charge and draw plays. I’ve always done that. And I think it’s been very beneficial to my assistant coaches.”
David Cox, Mike Jones and Greg Manning all getting head coaching experience is another unique part of the trip. Stats and results should be taken with a grain of salt, but it will be exciting to see Maryland basketball again nonetheless.
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