Men's Basketball Italy Trip Diary - DAY 5 - Providence College Athletics

Aug. 22, 2002

*Note - Assistant Coach Bob Walsh will chronicle the team's trip through Italy. His reports will be posted regulary on www.friars.com. Reports on all the team's game action also will be available on www.friars.com.

Day 5 - Rimini

Take a part of South Beach and part of the boardwalk on the Jersey Shore and you've got Rimini, Italy, a beach town on the East Coast along the Adriatic Sea. We arrived here yesterday after a 5 hour bus ride that began in Varese at about 7 AM. We are in one of the small hotels right along the beach across from the boardwalk.

The guys are still trying to adjust to the fact that they don't eat hot breakfast over here. We were going to try and take them to McDonalds to get breakfast for the bus, before we found out that McDonalds in Varese doesn't open until 11 because they don't serve breakfast. We stopped at an AutoGrill rest stop along the way to Rimini, and what a free-for-all that was. They just pour everyone into one small cafeteria like room and people are lining up and ordering from all over the place. Eventually, I think, most of our guys found something they could eat.

We checked into the hotel and dropped our stuff off before heading out to get something to eat along the boardwalk. I'm sure there are plenty of things that we have in the States that most of the world considers gaudy or excessive, but shower curtains certainly cant be one of them. In fact, we still can't figure out why every bathroom contains a bid? but no shower curtain. It takes a little more skill than you would like to use to clean yourself off.

By the way, on a side note, bid? jokes never stop being funny. They don't get tired at all. Like, when you are a minute late for the bus, and you say, "Coach, sorry, I was just..." well, you get the point. Always funny.

Most of the guys grabbed some pizza and pasta and then spent some time on the beach. It's pretty amazing to see Marcus Douthit and Tuukka Kotti walking along the Adriatic Sea together taking pictures of just about everything they can. Our guys are going to have a ton of pictures when they arrive home.

We gave them the day off in Rimini to enjoy themselves on their own. Most of the guys got back from the beach and then went out to dinner along the boardwalk at the different cafes. I'm sure a few of them went right over to McDonalds to enjoy some American food. The time they spend together is so valuable to our team, and we are really expecting it to pay dividends in the long run. It is such a good opportunity for all of them to hang out in a relaxed setting and to get to see each other in completely different situations. They also get a chance to see the coaching staff in a completely different light without the pressure of having a Big East game coming up to prepare for. I don't know if well ever be able to quantify how valuable this exerience is.

Vince Cautero, Ryan Gomes and Marcus Douthit represented us at a youth basketball game that is part of the weeklong basketball extravaganza that culminates with our game Friday night against Scavellini. They signed autographs and presented the awards to the winning teams.

The staff went over to Riccione to have dinner and enjoy the night over there. It was too crowded to even get in anywhere, but we just walked around the streets - amazingly, the shops were still open and people were shopping after 11:00 at night.

We are glad to be 2-0, but tomorrows game starts a stretch of 3 against a better level of competition. Scavellini is consistently one of the top 5 teams in Italy, and one of our hosts told us they have Aaron McGhee from Oklahoma playing for them. It should be a great challenge and an extremely difficult test. They are expecting a very big crowd and there have been articles in the paper all week about the game, so hopefully our guys are up for the challenge.

GO FRIARS!

Upcoming Event: Men's Basketball versus Nebraska on November 7, 2026 at TBA

Providence College Athletics

Men's Basketball Italy Trip Diary - DAY 5

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