The Titans In Spain: Our Blogs
A 23-person party of travelers – including Titan basketball players, coaches and staff – will wing their way over six times zones Wednesday to begin an 11-day exhibition tour of Spain.
DetroitTitans.com will keep you informed of the travelers' cultural activities and game results throughout the tour with photos and reports as they are sent back via the internet.
The UDM travel party will land in Barcelona on Thursday, and will do some sightseeing as they get their land legs back. The Titans will play their first game on Saturday vs. Girona.
Other games and dates include: Aug. 24 vs. Vilaseca, Aug. 25 vs. Calpe, Aug. 26 vs. Lliria and Aug. 28 vs. Avila, one day prior to departure for home.
There are nine Titans on the playing roster for the trip, including forward Xavier Keeling, who missed most of last season with a foot injury, as well as center Eli Holman and guard Chase Simon, each of whom sat out last year after transferring to UDM. Coach Ray McCallum and his staff have spent much of the last 10 days preparing their squad for the upcoming games against the Spanish professional teams.
“We've had 10 practices and we've been able to work on our conditioning and we've gotten a lot of shots up. We've implemented our defensive schemes and we've worked on our offensive execution,” coach McCallum noted. “We've worked on floor balance and spacing, and the execution has been good.
“We've gotten better through each session of practices,” he added with a smile, “and we've stayed healthy.”
This summer's foreign tour is the first by a UDM team since the 1990-91 Titans made a successful trip to Italy. Once again, the team is traveling through the generosity of its supporters. The foreign tour is similar to the one 2009 Horizon League champion Cleveland State took to Spain before last season and HL regular-season champion Butler has taken this summer to Italy.
-Detroit Titans-
