As we speak, Arizona State’s basketball team is almost 7,000 miles away from Tempe. The 14-hour flight to China is behind them. Coach Bobby Hurley, guard Remy Martin and the Sun Devils have enjoyed Shanghai Disneyland. They’ll go on a few different tours, eat exotic food and take a bunch of pictures at spots they’ve only seen…in pictures.
Oh yeah, and on Friday night (Saturday in China), they’ll play a basketball game.
“I mean, top to bottom, every guy I’ve asked, I’ve talked to the guys a lot about what we will do, and (asked), ‘Are you excited about this trip?’ And, (they’ve said) ‘Absolutely,” Hurley said.
The game against Colorado, which won't count toward the Pac-12 standings, will mark the first contest between two Pac-12 programs on foreign soil -- one Pac-12 school has played in China each of the last four years. And it will be the first time the Sun Devils tip-off a season against a Power 5 opponent in more than a decade.
For an ASU squad that expects some of its newcomers to be key contributors after the losses of Zylan Cheatham and Luguentz Dort to the NBA, Friday’s game will be an early litmus test against a familiar opponent, one ASU has struggled against in recent years (the Buffaloes have beat ASU three times in the last two years).
These overseas trips can entail logistic headaches. There’s the 16-hour time change, the long flights, the non-basketball extracurriculars, the perpetual bus rides to different gyms and appearances.
It’s a lot, and until they depart on Sunday, November 10th, the Sun Devils’ itinerary is loaded.
But ASU’s participation in the Pac-12 China Game presents opportunities for the school.
On the phone the night before he departed for Shanghai, Matt Lopez joked that he’s been to China more than he’s been to California. Now a pro at overcoming the travel obstacles, ASU’s Assistant Vice President of Enrollment Services and Executive Director of Admission Services said he’s traveled to Asia’s second-largest country more than two dozen times.
On this trip, though, he’ll be accompanied by about 12 educators from ASU, the group embarking to China to help the school take full advantage of its basketball team’s international platform.
When the Pac-12 made the game official nearly a year ago, Lopez and a flurry of ASU stakeholders united and began working the trip through. Not necessarily all of the trip’s various intricacies, most of which is handled by the Pac-12, but rather how ASU could best take advantage of the basketball game, of how the Sun Devils could expand upon the basketball game and apply it to the school itself.
“(We had to make sure) we understood the amount and the level of partnerships that currently exist. Certainly aspirational thoughts about how we could grow those and find more,” Lopez said. “We have a large student body of Chinese nationals connected to ASU as learners, just under 3,200 right now.”
Lopez admitted he’s biased when it comes to these things. He’s always looking for ways to enhance enrollment figures and find like-minded educational partners. The Sun Devils’ basketball game in China allows him a golden opportunity to do both.
Arizona State will have recruiters -- some based in China and some U.S. based -- and faculty from its various academic colleges on-site, visiting high schools and a number of its partner universities in nearby cities.
“At our size, we probably have to be a little bit more diligent than the average school,” Lopez said.
Among the partners ASU reached out to ahead of its trip was Starbucks, which partnered with the school to create The Starbucks College Achievement Plan in 2015 and has a 30,000 square-foot roastery in Shanghai.
A trip to the largest Starbucks in the world was soon added as one of Hurley and Co.’s first stops in China. Along with touring the roastery on Monday, the Sun Devil basketball team helped ran a camp with kids from Basketball Hall of Famer Yao Ming’s charity and attended Disneyland Shanghai.
They’ll play an exhibition against a local university, visit the Alibaba Sports Offices, practice a few times and then play a game.
Phew.
“You can look at it one way and say like, ‘Oh man, we’re going out there for 10 days. We have to play a game and all this,’” Martin said. “But at the end of the day, what’s the flip side to that? You get to go to China, get to go to Disneyland. It’s one of those things where it’s like, ‘Just look at the positives.’”
Martin, who is very proud and vocal about his Filipino heritage, seemed to relish in the opportunity to explore and learn about a different culture. Speaking of the trip a few days before ASU departed Tempe, he failed to hold back his effervescent smile.
Ahead of the trip, he, along with the other Sun Devils, took a one-credit class focused on Chinese culture and competency.
“Just getting the heads up, and it’s a different world out there when you live by different rules,” Martin said. “Learning about those things and how to say the words is like, ‘Man, this is crazy.’”
Said Katie Paquet, ASU’s Vice President of Media Relations and Strategic Communications who helped put together the class: “It’s really kind of a once-in-a-lifetime unique experience for students and I feel like there is a really good mix of educational activities, a look into business operations in China … and then plenty of playing time and practice time.”
For Hurley and most ASU fans, the Sun Devils’ expedition to China, fairly or not will be judged and remembered based on the outcome of Friday’s contest against Colorado.
For Lopez’s purposes, it may take time before he’ll be able to truly judge the success of Arizona State’s Chinese endeavor.
“I’m confident that in 15 years, we’ll look back and say, ‘Yeah, that was well worth it,’ Lopez said. “We will look back on that and say, ‘Did we make an impact and our we continuing to work towards our charter?’
“I’m fairly confident we have a robust enough plan that we’ll look back and say, ‘That was great.’”
