Eighteen thousand, twenty-four miles.
That’s approximately the amount that the Long Beach State men’s basketball team will travel during nonconference play this season.
It isn’t the most in the country. Norfolk State in Virginia will make cross-country trips to Seattle and Hawaii for a nation-leading 20,850 miles, and Georgetown will play Oregon on a military base in South Korea as part of a 19,374-mile nonconference travel schedule.
Even so, the amount of traveling LBSU does for its nonconference games consistently ranks among the highest in the country, and this year is no different. The 49ers’ travel total ranks third in the nation, and the teams they face after those long flights aren’t cupcakes either.
“If you’re going to play a tough schedule, they’re not going to come here, so you’ve got to go to their places,” head coach Dan Monson said. “We’ve done it before. It’s not easy, but it’s something we’re used to doing.”
This year’s schedule is highlighted by the usual tough matchups. Several of those will be played after the 49ers finish their 2,319-mile flight from Manhattan, Kan., to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
PUERTO RICO TIP-OFF
LBSU’s longest road trip of the season in terms of miles and days will take place from Nov. 16 to Nov. 24. The 49ers will leave for a game against Kansas State in Manhattan, Kan. on Nov. 16 and then head straight to Puerto Rico for the following tournament.
For many players, it will be the farthest they have ever traveled. For senior center Dan Jennings, it’s a return trip.
“My sophomore year, I played in Puerto Rico with West Virginia,” Jennings said. “So to go back there, it’s going to be beautiful.”
Junior guard McKay LaSalle, who is in his first year at The Beach after transferring from Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif., said the trip will be one to remember.
“Basketball is my life: it’s an experience that I’ll be able to tell my kids about that I got to go to Puerto Rico and play Michigan, and we won or whatever,” he said. “It’s just an awesome experience that I’m excited to have.”
Others aren’t so excited.
“I’m really concerned about Puerto Rico because of the distance it is, the length of time we’re gone, them missing school, all that kind of thing,” Monson said. “Once we get there I know it’ll be great for the players.”
Monson added that the trip to Puerto Rico will be the most different culturally and that it would be beneficial to the players to see the country beyond its tourist image.
“To see a different country and how people live, the one time I went to Puerto Rico it was very enlightening, the poverty,” he said. “There’s the tourism side of it, but to see the other side of Puerto Rico is something that will hopefully let them appreciate how good they have it and that sort of thing.”
THE MONEY
In most cases, LBSU receives a check from the host school as a part of the travel contract, LBSU assistant coach and schedule-maker Eric Brown said. Unlike other away games, the team will not have their travel expenses for Puerto Rico covered because it’s a tournament.
“Some of those tournaments are different,” Brown said. “Sometimes they’ll entice you to come in there, and they’ll pay for X amount of your travel, and then they want you to go to another one of their tournaments down the road sometimes. With [Puerto Rico], we’re on our own. We pay for our flights; we pay for hotel.”
He said that those checks generally range anywhere from $60,000 to $110,000, a significantly smaller amount than the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid for big-time football games.
“Basketball is different,” he said. “It’s not just here, it’s basketball in general.”
Brown declined to name a specific amount that the team was receiving for any of this year’s road trips, but he did say that “we try to work around that $80,000 range.”
MISSING CLASSES
The 49ers are fortunate in that despite all of their road trips this year, the Puerto Rico trip is the only one that requires the players to miss class.
It’s not an accident that LBSU will spend most of its weekdays at home. LaSalle said that academics are a priority for the players and coaches, but that it’s hardly a bad thing.
“They keep a pretty tight leash on us as far as getting grades and being together and being a team,” he said. “That’s kind of my impression right now, and how the coaching staff cares about us individually and us as a team on and off the court.”
Whether it’s the result of emphasis on academics or the product of trying to save money and miles, Brown said he does his best to get multiple games out of road trips without creating a conflict for players’ classes.
“If you do go back east, you maybe try to get two games at once instead of going back and forth a couple times,” he said. “A school like Arizona is good because they’re a top-five program, and they’re an hour flight. Then you’ve got to juggle around too final exams. If you do a trip like that, you maybe try to do it on a weekend.”
TRAVEL TOLL
Anyone who’s taken a cross-country flight knows the feeling of finally getting off the plane. Your legs feel useless, and you’ve been shifting your weight for the last three hours trying to provide your hindside a little relief.
Now imagine being a 6-9 basketball player going on seven of those flights over the course of three weeks.
“You have grown men in the NBA complain about the wears and tears of travel,” Monson said. “It’s statistically proven that it’s hard on your body; it disrupts your sleep patterns because you’re getting up early to catch early flights and that kind of thing. That’s why you do it, to teach them how to get through those types of situations.”
Jennings, who has been traveling significant miles since he was a freshman at West Virginia, said that while there is a toll, he doesn’t mind it.
“It does take a toll on you, but at the same time it’s very fun because it’s a chemistry thing,” he said. “It really helps you build chemistry with your teammates. I think it’s a fun thing, honestly.”
VACATION VS. BUSINESS TRIP
In the competitive environment of college basketball, road trips are about playing well and winning, not going to Disneyland and hanging out with princesses. While this remains true for LBSU, Monson said he tries to incorporate sightseeing into trips as much as he can.
“Every place, if there’s something there you try to give it to them,” Monson said, “but unfortunately when we go in to play at North Carolina State or Washington, we go in, we get in there the afternoon before the game, we have practice, we have study hall, the next day it’s really hard to disrupt the game day.”
Monson said he has found time to take his teams on mini-tours before, like when they visited Pearl Harbor during the 2011 Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii. Or when they drove by Churchill Downs during a trip to Louisville the same year.
“College basketball needs to be more than just wins and losses and games,” Monson said. “There’s always college experience that you want them to leave with.”
Jenning said that while he enjoys traveling, he recognizes the need to focus on basketball.
“This is very serious basketball, it’s very serious to me, and it’s like a business,” he said. “If you want to make money at this sport someday, you have to embrace times like this. You can’t get caught up in going to Puerto Rico. You have to get caught up in playing great competition and showcasing your talents.”