For a little more than a week in August, the Cyclones men’s basketball team traded one Coliseum for another.

This time, instead of Hilton, it was the Coliseum in Rome, where the Cyclones were staying while playing four exhibition games.

“I actually really liked the Coliseum,” said guard Chris Babb. “We went on a tour of that. It was really awesome to see … where a lot of today’s arenas and stuff like that, where it really started.”

The team spent a little more than a week in Italy as a warmup for the coming season. Unfortunately for the team, the sightseeing was just as, if not more, exciting than the actual basketball that was played.

“As you can probably tell by some of the scores of the games we were in, we weren’t playing the type of teams we’ll be playing in the fall,” said senior guard Scott Christopherson. “So as far as from those games, not to say they were meaningless, but you’re not going to draw a lot from those games.”

The Cyclones won their final game of the trip 116-44 over Roma Basket.

That’s not to say they didn’t take anything away from the trip basketball-wise. Both Christopherson and Babb, along with teammate Royce White, said the trip was great for the team.

“[The trip was] just having a chance to play in a game-like situation against an opponent other than ourselves,” White said. “Even in the [Capital] City League we played against ourselves in some sense. Like, Melvin [Ejim] would be guarding me if we played his team or [Anthony Booker] would be guarding me, and now it was time for us to be able to play with each other. I thought that really pulled us together and helped our chemistry more than anything.”

The chemistry that White talked about was echoed by both Babb and Christopherson.

Even with a year to practice together on the scout team, many of the transfers and incoming players haven’t had a chance to all play together. With 10 practices leading up to the Italy trip as a whole team, the players believe they’ve gotten a great opportunity.

“I think the 10 practices leading up to the trip kind of give everybody an idea where they’re at, give the coaches an idea where they’re at,” Christopherson said. “It’s a long year and you want to have a steady, healthy progression as a team with your team chemistry, and guys building relationships, and this obviously gives us a huge head start on that.

“As long as guys have the right attitude and come ready to work hard every day, I think things will take care of itself.”

The players got to experience more than just basketball while in Rome.

Aside from the Coliseum, players and coaches toured the city, saw places like the Vatican, and ate at restaurants they probably wouldn’t have in the United States.

They also experienced culutres of all kinds, and met people from all over the world.

“The thing that was the most shocking for me, or the best thing for me was seeing how diverse some of these places were, and what the people looked like,” White said. “You learn that there’s people from all over Europe there, people from all over the world, people that were from Morocco and in Italy. People from anywhere you could imagine”

In all, the trip was seen as a great positive, Christopherson said how he “couldn’t see it as anything other than a positive” experience.

“[We were] kind of experiencing it for the first time together,” White said. “It was pretty amazing for everybody I would say. And that’s definitely something we will share and everyone will know for the rest of our lives.”