Aug. 31, 2007

Hitting the hardwood a bit early this season, the Baylor men's basketball team departed from Waco Friday afternoon on its Cancun Tour. The tour will include two games against professional Mexican teams beginning on Saturday against Selecciones de Belize at 6:30 p.m. CDT and Sunday against Quintana Roo Pioneros at 8:00 p.m. CDT.

Head Coach Scott Drew

Look of the squad:

"They look very good considering we've had just 11 days to get 10 practices in. You try to get enough is so they can run an offense and have a defense at the same time. Now we're getting to the end of the week and we're starting to get some people banged up and we need to make sure we have enough people to go down there and play so we'll back off a little bit in the next two days."

Great time to go:

"You get one every four years and given the number of returning players and adding three new ones. If you wait and do your tour once school starts you can practice your new guys and if you do it in the summer then you can't use your incoming players. For us it was a great time because we have a veteran team and at the same time we want to get these young guys up to speed."

Catching up:

This time is more beneficial to (incoming players) because they get a chance to find out our terminology and find out what our practices are going to be like, get a foundation of our offense and defense and what we want and what we are going to require from them. This puts them further ahead than anyone, especially compared to other freshman in the nation that won't get that first day of official practice until Oct. 12."

General expectations:

These tours are really more focused on your team and that's exactly what we're doing. It builds team chemistry and as a coaching staff it lets us know what are team is going to be like. When we're done with this tour we get a couple of weeks to determine what we want to put in offensively and defensively that fits this personnel.

Kevin Rogers

Workout update:

"Workouts have been going fine. The new guys are really impressive, especially LaceDarius (Dunn) who is really picking up things at a rapid pace. He's been able to pick up things and interpret that into the way that he plays and how we play."

Opponent information:

"I don't know too much about them, but we've heard they're pretty good. We heard they gave Auburn a scare and that they have some pretty good guys and some of them were missing."

Expectations from the trip:

"Hopefully we'll build some team chemistry. You've got to know the guys that you'll take the court with, where they like the ball and what they like to do. I think the biggest thing will be to develop that early team chemistry."

Ability to build chemistry early:

"These last 10 practices we've been able to see what these young guys can do and we've been fine tuning our skills and putting that together. This should be a great team."

Prior knowledge of the trip:

"Coach never brought it up. I think the only thing he told us was that he wanted to save this for the year that he thought it was right. I guess he thought that this year was it with most of the guys returning and the talent of the young guys coming in. I never knew anything about it. I've always seen other teams do it but I never knew this would be an opportunity for us.

Curtis Jerrells

Adding new sets:

"There's not so much new stuff, just stuff we should already know. We've go to go down there with something, we can't just be out there running around so there will be structure."

It's about getting better as a team:

"I think that is what the whole trip is about. I think coach said every four years they give you the opportunity to do something like this. It doesn't go on your record but its just to better your team."

Aaron Bruce

Good time for a trip:

"I don't know how much of a vacation it is going to be, but it will be nice to travel with the guys again and get on the floor in some game situations. We've talked about how much we miss playing a real game and this will be a nice chance to do that."

Getting a head start:

"I think it's a great opportunity for us to get ahead of the pack a little bit as far as being put in that game situation and having to deal with travel. Just going through the formality of packing your bag and preparing for a game now is going to help when the Big 12 season rolls around and hopefully that will translate into more wins for us."