Beilein had confirmed trip was to Spain, but now we have the official dates (August 17th through 26th) and cities (Madrid and Barcelona).
Can recruits visit on such tours under NCAA rules? Usually that wouldn’t be a particularly relevant question, but I’m just thinking that it would be a much shorter trip for a certain younger brother who lives in Germany…
I don’t think there would be anything to stop them from showing up for a game, but you couldn’t setup an official (paid for by University) visit in Spain 
Not sure that it would really make sense for Franz to pay his own way to watch an exhibition game in Spain.
I wonder what kind of teams we are going to face. The last two trips, we faced lower tier teams (but both those years were transition years for us with high roster turnover). Since there seems to be higher expectations this year than the other years we took trips, maybe we face some of the upper echelon Spanish teams.
If I remember correctly, the trip to Belgium they lost a couple of games. The games in Italy were a joke for all intents and purposes.
They want competitive games, but it can be tough because it is basically the preseason for all Euro leagues. That means a lot of clubs A) haven’t even signed their American stars for the upcoming year and B) players aren’t even all there for the season yet.
I just checked the schedules and it seems Spain’s top league the Liga ACB starts on September 29 while the Euroleague starts the following month. It seems weird that they wouldn’t have their rosters determined a month before the season starts when Michigan makes the trip.
It could be that the American players are still waffling on staying in the G-League or biting the bullet on signing in Europe.
Went 1-3 in Belgium (and France), losing to Gent, Cherleroi, and Oostande, beating Mons
I hope they can get some better quality competition.
More important than the games is the 10 extra practices IMO. That is still valuable no matter the competition in the scrimmages.
Plane tickets from Germany to Spain are actually cheaper than those from most states to Michigan–you can get a round trip flight for like $80. And if he could attend some practices, see how the coaches and the players interact, etc, might be worth the trip.
I wonder if they could play some iteration of the national team.
I’m not sure playing anything resembling a La Liga roster or any iteration of their National team is something that would be interesting to our prospective opposition. La Liga’s caliber of play is pretty far above NCAA, and I can’t imagine talking a guy like Sergio Rodriguez into playing a college club.
Why would Spain do this? They consider themselves very close to the USA national teams level. This would be like the USA team playing a college team.
The only way this happens is something like Purdue playing in place of a Team USA youth squad last year at the University Games.
I agree with Dylan that the extra ten practices with the freshmen is monumental for team chemistry. Just think what a trip like this would have meant for last years team. A W in the final? We will never know.
Maybe a better performance in Maui, but I would argue better chance to run out of gas late in the season than somehow having an impact that late in the year.
Yep – they definitely want to play against good comp. I think they were very frustrated with how poor the comp was in Italy.
Absolutely, and I think it gives an opportunity for the coaches to give players stuff to work on until fall camp starts. I know you probably were including that in your comment, but I’m compulsive. 