The Texas Women’s Basketball team prepared for its upcoming trip to Italy by taking a class about Italian culture and history from the UT Department of French and Italian.
The Aston interview is interesting because she talks briefly about Joyner's absence and how the freshmen are integrating into the program.
Team played a little Amazing Race contest and, surprise surprise, the team with Brooke and Jamie won. Seems a bit lopsided putting 2 of the most competitive people in the program on the same team.
They do. I'm unsure if there's a specific NCAA rule that covers this. But I believe that UT tries to schedule an exotic trip like this at least once every 2 or 4 years. I read this in some article about women's volleyball that they try to schedule a fun place in the US (Hawaii) and some exotic place (Europe) in the 4 year cycle of their athletes. I'm not sure if WBB has this philosophy as well. I don't know why they didn't go anywhere "fun" the 2015-2016 season. 2017-2018 Italy 2013-2014 St. Thomas (Paradise Jam) 2011-2012 Honolulu 2009-2010 St. Thomas (Paradise Jam)
Based on Coach Aston's interview before they left, this Italy trip was actually planned for 2015-2016 but had to be canceled (no reason given). I didn't know if this was something they've been doing for some time but hadn't been widely publicized. The trips for tournaments (Paradise Jam) were right before the season started, I assumed this Italy trip was something new.
@racerx5908 Found an article on all the WBB teams in Italy this year and came across this: "College teams are allowed to take foreign trips once every four years, and it seems Italy is where most teams want to go. Aston was planning to take her team there a few years ago. But some key players had offseason surgeries, so the trip was postponed." Full article - https://apnews.com/11d18804eb6f48c6...en's-college-hoops-teams-taking-foreign-trips Looks like Ariel won't miss it completely: Aston will be missing star Ariel Atkins, who is currently playing with the U.S. Under-23 team in Japan. The Longhorns guard will join the squad midway through the trip. However, Aston said she’ll rest Atkins and play some of her younger players. “Ariel will be extremely exhausted and she could have gone home, but she was a little more interested in joining the team,” Aston said.
I've noticed the same thing. However, she has been in most of the videos where they are working out with the S&C coach.