Assistant Basketball Coach Mark Jensen '00 has had an idea brewing for the last three years and this summer it is finally coming to fruition. He will be leading a team of 10 college basketball players from six different schools and taking them to Italy to play against professional teams. The team of graduating seniors are all Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) standouts and include Poets Nick DeMusis '15 and Andrew Bucholtz '15. The other players belong to Whittier College fellow SCIAC institutions: Chapman University, California Lutheran University, University of La Verne, Pomona-Pitzer Colleges, and California Institute of Technology.
Starting June 1, the All Star SCIAC team will travel around "The Boot" for seven days and will face two teams in Rome and two more in Florence. "We encourage our student-athletes to travel abroad at some point, however, basketball players rarely do because our sport overlaps both semesters," said Jensen.
The SCIAC team has been practicing together for two weeks and each player is paying their own way to travel abroad. According to Jensen, this trip will provide foreign travel experience for these young men and also give them a chance to be seen by scouts with the possibility to get signed to professional contracts to play in Europe.
This collaborative initiative also includes coaches Ryan Conboy '01 and Cal Lutheran's Assistant Basketball Coach Geoff Dains.
