BLACKSBURG – The Virginia Tech women's basketball program were fortunate to have the opportunity to travel overseas last for a Foreign Tour that spanned 12 days and four historic cities; Paris, Rome, Florence and Venice.
While abroad, the squad played three games, winning them all in convincing fashion and took in the sights, sounds and monumental landmarks of the cities. The group was treated to a Seine River tour of Paris and had numerous opportunities to see the Eiffel Tower, as well as a trip to the Roman Forum and Colosseum, the Vatican, Florence's Academia Gallery featuring Michelangelo's masterpiece, a 17-foot statue 'David' and much more.
For a complete look at the trip, visit this link which has blogs, photo galleries and a special Adobe Spark page that chronicles the Hokies' adventures.
Editor's note: we caught up with Coach Brooks and asked him a few questions about the trip, including what his favorite part of the trip was, what the student-athletes took away from the experience and who impressed him on the court.
HokieSports.com: The trip was a good mix of basketball and cultural experiences, what was your favorite part?
Kenny Brooks "Honestly, my favorite part was watching the kid's expressions as they went through the experience. I've been there multiple times and it never gets old, but to do it with this group and to watch them go through all the experiences and really appreciate it was special. Multiple times they individually came up to me and thanked me for the trip, for the opportunity, for the experiences. They have actually sent me notes thanking me. That in itself, you know that you are lending an experience of a lifetime to kids who might not be able to get to do it, but to know how appreciative they are lets you know that you're building a good program. As a result, for me It's kind of like when you are able to give to your own children, that's the gratification that you really want and that is what we really got."
HS: Do you feel like the student-athletes really took some valuable lessons from the trip?
KB "I thought Tim Clark did a tremendous job of working with Basketball Travelers to set up the lineup of events. We went to Paris which was wonderful, but it just seemed like every city that we went to progressively got better for their experiences and watching their faces light up every time we went to a new city to experience something different was priceless. I thought that they were really engaged in the educational aspect of it. Obviously, they loved the entertainment part of it, but we got so much out of it from an educational standpoint. They were listening, they were wanting to learn about the culture. Obviously, we got to play a few games and I got to learn a little bit about our squad. All in all, it was a really good trip. Normally when you take a trip of this magnitude by day eight you are probably tired of each other, but I don't think we really experienced that feeling at all. The kids really had a tremendous time."
HS: On the basketball court, how would you assess the three games that the Hokies were able to play?
KB"It's kind of like you prepared them to play basketball, but you went over there and you played basketball with an asterisk. The international game is different, it's just different than our game. The biggest adjustment we had was the physicality. The referees, it was "no harm no foul", they let you play through it, where here, the game is monitored in a different fashion so we had to adjust in that aspect. I thought they did a very good job in doing so, but also you have to adjust to the fact that there is a shorter shot clock. Our kids were used to having the extra six seconds to get into our offense and we were sped up a little bit. Adversity hit us a couple times, I thought they handled it very well considering that they had never been together. When you have seven new kids, you are trying to incorporate into your lineup, I thought they did a really good job of adjusting and we came away with three victories. The last two opponents in particular were very formidable, they were good, they tested us and I thought we came through and we learned a lot from those games."
HS: Did anybody's performances stick out to you in particular?
KB "They all did in some way, shape or form. I thought Dara Mabrey played well considering that we are experimenting a little bit with her, moving her off the ball probably more than she's used to, just trying to free her up some so that she can focus on scoring. She's a deadly shooter, so I thought she played well throughout the course of the three games. I thought Elizabeth Kitley did a good job of trying to hold down the post area. Taylor Geiman probably did a little bit of everything, didn't shoot the ball particularly well, but she is such a connector and did a really good job. Asiah Jones did a really good job. I thought they all did something to make their mark, to put their imprint on what they can be. That's exactly what I was looking for, to kind of see what they can bring to the table."
Last week, Coach Brooks announced to Hokies' 2019-20 non-conference schedule which can be found here.
Season tickets for the 2019-20 season are available for $100 for an adult reserved seat ($90 for faculty/staff), $40 for a youth reserved seat, $80 for an adult general admission season pass and $35 for a youth general admission season pass.Additional benefits of purchasing women's basketball season tickets include free parking adjacent to Cassell Coliseum, exclusive giveaways, opportunities for messages on the video board and more. Click here to view season ticket options.
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Take a look back at the trip with the women's basketball Adobe Spark page below.