The season will start early – but with a Caribbean twist – for the High Point University men's basketball team. The Panthers are taking a trip to the Bahamas from August 7-12 and will play two games against local competition.
The trip will give the team a head start on practicing and playing together and it also represents an ideal opportunity for team bonding. The team will stay in the Royal Towers on Paradise Island. The entire HPU team is currently taking classes, playing pickup basketball and working out on the High Point campus.
Since they arrived at High Point University a little over a year ago, head coach Scott Cherry and his assistants have hit the recruiting trail hard – and it is paying dividends. High Point University inked seven recruits to National Letters of Intent over the past year. The newcomers are expected to be talented and contribute to the team's success right away, and Cherry wants to make sure the transition goes as smoothly as possible.
"This is a great chance to take our new guys, incorporate them with nine returning players and give them time to bond and get to know one-another," said Cherry.
"We are going to be able to utilize six or seven days before the trip for practice. We can introduce the new guys to our terminology, drills and get them used to how hard we practice and how hard we play. We won't have to wait until October for practice to start. The team will be ingrained in it and understand what we're looking for in early August."
High Point University will play teams from the Bahamas on August 8 and August 10. The opponents will be determined in the weeks before the trip. The other days of the trip will be spent practicing, sightseeing, touring the area and doing team-bonding activities.
"The games are important. But more importantly, it's the practice time and the time the guys get to spend around one another developing the chemistry and unity that all successful teams need to have," said Cherry. "We want to win the conference championship next year and it will start in August with these guys practicing and spending time around each other."
It will be a homecoming trip for senior point guard
Tehran Cox (Nassau, Bahamas/Fayetteville (Ark.) Christian (Arkansas-Fort Smith)), who is originally from Nassau, Bahamas. He played two years at Arkansas-Fort Worth before transferring to HPU last season. Cox played in all 30 games at the point for HPU, averaging 4.2 points, 2.3 rebounds and a team-leading 3.4 assists.
"One of the reasons we chose the Bahamas for this trip was to get Tehran Cox to play in front of his family once during his playing career at High Point," said Cherry. "I'm trying to do that for each one of our guys – get a game as close as we can to their hometowns so they can play in front of family and friends."
High Point set up the trip through Basketball Travelers, Inc. The company is paying for the trip and taking care of all of the accommodations. In return, HPU will play in a multi-team event set up by Basketball Travelers, Inc., during the 2011-12 season.
High Point is coming off a 15-15 season in which they went 10-8 in the Big South. It was a six-win improvement overall and in league play.