Men’s Basketball: Plaisance follows in UL alums’ traveling footsteps

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, August 6, 2015

 

Gus Hauser

 

Carrying passports, crossing borders and clearing customs seems to have become second nature lately for members of the UL basketball team.

Following in the footsteps of Jay Wright, Shawn Long, Bryce Washington and Johnathan Stove, the latest Ragin’ Cajuns to engage in international travel are big man Scott Plaisance and assistant coach Gus Hauser.

The immersion for all, Hauser suggested, is bound to pay dividends down the road.

“I think from a playing-standpoint it’s a great experience, because they play against really good (foreign) players who are older,” he said. “I mean, these guys are men. They’re in their mid-20s, mid-to-late 20s, a lot of these guys.

“I think from an exposure standpoint a lot of different scouts and people in the international game get to see (the American college players’) talents there first-hand.

“And I think culturally,” Hauser added, “it’s hard to replace an experience like that … to be around the people, and new languages, and having a chance to see some of these sights that are probably once-in-a-lifetime sights.”

Hauser is head coach of a team from Global Sports Academy that was to leave Thursday for an eight-day tour that includes two games in Belgium, two in Germany, one in the Netherlands and a sightseeing side-trip to London, England.

In addition to Plaisiance, a Country Day School product from the New Orleans area who redshirted as a freshman at UL last season, Hauser’s 11-man team includes players from Alabama-Birmingham, Southern Methodist, Clemson and Southern University.

One of the team’s guards will be Trelun Banks, son of Southern coach Roman Banks.

The GSA travel party was to meet in Philadelphia, then fly from there to Brussels, Belgium, where a tour guide and program director will steer them throughout Europe.

The nonprofit Global Sports Academy says on its website that since 1991 it has arranged “tours for college and youth teams from the United States and countries around the world to promote international competition and goodwill.”

Hauser said Washington and Stove have been on a nearly three-week trip to New Zealand with Athletes in Action, a faith-based organization that bills itself on its website as “helping athletes take their passion, faith and sport to new places” while “equipping athletes to become servant-leaders” and “teaching athletes to play for an audience of one.”

The UL redshirt-freshmen duo was invited to join an AIA team that met in Los Angeles and practiced there for a few days before continuing on to New Zealand.

“We’re proud of them,” Hauser said of Stove and Washington.

“They’ve been texting us, and we’ve been following them on the blogs, and they’re both doing really well, and I think they’re having a great experience.”

Wright got the ball rolling for Cajun jetsetters this offseason by taking a trip to China with Sports Reach USA in which the starting UL point guard not only played but also got to visit the Great Wall of China and other famed tourist destinations there.

Sports Reach is the same Christian ministry group with which ex-UL point guard and current Orlando Magic point Elfrid Payton traveled to China as well in 2013.

Payton went on that year to play for USA Basketball’s gold medal-winning entry at the FIBA Under-19 World Championships in the Czech Republic, and in 2014 he was the 10th overall selection in the NBA Draft.

Last month, Long tried out for and played on USA Basketball’s Pan-American Games team in Toronto, Canada.

After losing a semifinal game 111-108 to Canada, the Americans rallied from 21 points down to beat the Dominican Republic 87-82 in a third-place game.

Long, a Morgan City High product, played in one of five games for Team USA, scoring five off-the-bench points in a win over Puerto Rico.

“He (Long) shared with me what a unique and diverse city (Toronto) was,” Hauser said. “(We’re proud) that he made that roster and … (had) a chance to be coached by (Gonzaga coach) Mark Few (and) learn a new system.

“We’re super-proud,” the Cajun assistant added, “of what he did to bring the bronze medal home.”

Both Long and Payton also were members of a Bob Marlin-coached UL team that played NCAA-sanctioned exhibition games in Spain in the summer of 2013, then went on to play in the 2014 NCAA Tournament.

“Our players that were a part of that (Spain) trip that still are on our roster,” Hauser said, “continue to talk about it today — just about what an incredible experience it was.”