Men’s Basketball: Payton to play in China

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, May 5, 2013

Elfrid Payton is taking his game to China.

UL’s first-team All-Sun Belt Conference point guard has been pick to play for Reach USA on a cultural exchange trip this month to the Far East.

Reach USA is affiliated with Sports Reach, a Christian sports ministry that according to its website is devoted to “reaching and teaching the world through sports.”

Payton and his Reach team will play eight games – and make two stops in the Chinese capital city of Beijing – during the two-plus-week trip, which begins Saturday.

He’s on a nine-member roster that includes college players from eight different schools, including two teammates from Sun Belt Tournament-winning and NCAA Tournament-qualifying Western Kentucky, second-team All-Sun Belt pick T.J. Price and third-team All-Sun Belt selection George Fant.

Others on the roster include D.J. Johnson, a reserve big man from Kansas State, and Stacy Wilson, a double-digit scorer last season for Murray State.

The traveling team’s head coach is former Texas-Pan American head coach and current Jacksonville State associate head coach Tom Schuberth, who has ties to UL coach Bob Marlin.

Schuberth’s Reach USA team recently found itself in need of a point guard for its China trip, Marlin has a bona fide good one in Payton and it wasn’t long before the Cajun sophomore from Gretna and John Ehret High in Marrero was applying for his first passport.

“I was working out, and Coach (Marlin) pulled me to the side and he (said), ‘You got invited to go play basketball in China with this Christian-based group, ” Payton said. “And I was like, ‘Wow.’

“He (Marlin) said (Schuberth) was looking for a point guard, he heard about me, and him and Coach were good friends, so I guess it was an easy connection.”

Payton averaged 15.9 points, a Sun Belt-high 5.5 assists and conference-leading 2.4 assists per game for the 13-20 Ragin’ Cajuns last season.

He said he’s looking forward to “some different competition,” the chance to “experience the world” and one sightseeing opportunity in particular this month.

“The Great Wall of China – that’s the biggest thing I want to see,” he said.

Payton’s only other international travel is to Canada, where his father – a Grambling University product also named Elfrid Payton – was a seven-time Canadian Football League All-Star.

Going from Gretna to the Great Wall, however, is not nearly as simple a journey as crossing the United States’ northern border.

Payton knows that.

But he is anxious to overcome whatever hurdles his first overseas trip may present, whether it’s communication issues, his initial taste of authentic Chinese food or pitting flashy American-style basketball against what he suspects will be fundamentals-based play from the opponents his team will face.

“It is something I think about – traveling the world through basketball,” Payton said.

“But,” he added, “I didn’t think it was going to come this fast.”