Penn State basketball will be taking a preseason trip to the Bahamas ahead of Mike Rhoades’s first season as coach.
The program announced this Wednesday morning.
Bahamas Bound 😎🌴 The Nittany Lions will take a seven-day foreign trip to the Bahamas this August
🔗: https://t.co/h4NzjiNnsF#WeAre pic.twitter.com/GCaCYlCYuh
— Penn State Men’s Basketball (@PennStateMBB) May 24, 2023
Per a press release Penn State will be headed to the Bahamas in August for a trip that will last Aug. 6-13.
While there, Penn State will stay and play its games at Nassau’s Baha Mar Resort.
Game times and opponents are not finalized yet but will be in the months ahead. Penn State will play a minimum of two exhibition games.
The NCAA allows its teams to play exhibition games abroad once every four years. Penn State last played overseas in 2017, back when Pat Chambers was the coach. That year, it also went to the Bahamas. The team took another Chambers-era trip in 2013, when it toured Europe. Penn State visited Belgium, France and England in 2013.
Rhoades called this a “perfect time for our basketball family to have a foreign trip to the Bahamas.”
”The valuable time to work and play together during a foreign trip will help us as we move into our first season together,” Rhoades said in the release. “The trip will allow us practice time prior to our departure and game experience that can set the tone as we move forward.”
Rhoades noted that this will be a team that, for the most part, hasn’t played together yet.
Nine of Penn State’s 12 scholarship players will be getting ready to start their first season with the program. Rhoades and his staff will also be entering their first year together in Happy Valley.
”We have many new players with a brand-new staff and the time together will hopefully create bonds and relationships that we will value very much,” he said. “We will spend seven days in the Bahamas and play some games, but most importantly create some lifelong memories as members of Penn State basketball.”
Rhodes thanked the people who “made this foreign trip possible.”
“We will take full advantage of this great opportunity,” Rhoades said.
