Monday is a big day for the University of Virginia's athletic department. The football team opens fall camp and the men's basketball team begins an eleven day trip to Europe.
The Cavaliers will play five games in three countries August 6-16. They travel to the Netherlands for two games against the country's B team, Belgium to face club team Gembo and wrap things up in Paris with two games against AMW Team France, a select squad of French League players.
Fifteen Virginia players are scheduled to make the trip, including eight returners and seven new guys. This is UVa's third trip to Europe since 1996, the second one coming in 2000.
They understand how to hold and how to grab and that has always been the biggest adjustment when we've taken our teams over there, how physical the play is," head coach Tony Bennett said. "Especially for our young guys, that will be different."
The Wahoos are looking forward to going up against a different style of play to get ready for the coming season.
"It's going to be a lot more physical playing over there," said junior Joe Harris of the older opponents they will face. "They'll probably be really intelligent players and also they're really skilled and it's obviously going to be a lot more physical than what we're used to."
Bennett had a little fun with the age difference, "We call it that old man or that dad strength. You know, kind of like there's a layer of fat I think and they can shove people around."
