It's a whole new ball game for the Hatters

Today the Stetson men's basketball team left the friendly confines of the Edmunds Center for their first road trip of the year.

Big deal you might say. College teams go on the road all the time.

True enough. Travel is a major part of being involved with college athletics. I have seen more hotel rooms over the years than I can even think about.

What makes this trip different, at least for me, is that everything is new. It is not only new for me, it is also new for members of the Stetson coaching staff and several members of the Hatters team.

The first trip of any season is usually the strangest because no one has yet settled into a routine. This trip is different because no one knows what the routine will be.

For instance, the first thing we all had to figure out was where to sit on the bus.

Seems like a small thing, but the Hatters have a coaching staff that is working together under Casey Alexander for the first time, and he is a first time head coach. The seating arrangements worked themselves out pretty quickly, as they usually do, with coaches and staff in the front, players in the back.

The trip north to Tallahassee was relatively short, but we went a different way than I would have expected. We traveled north on Interstate 95 to I-10 and then west to the state capital. My first few trips back and forth from Troy, Ala., to DeLand has been down I-75.

Anyway, we got in a movie on the ride ("Wedding Crashers") and made pretty good time.

Once we got to the hotel, Casey pulled all of the players together to go over some simple ground rules. Most of the things he told them were things you would never normally think of, but this is new for everyone.

"It is amazing the small things about travel that you don’t think about until you are doing it for the first time with a new group," Alexander said. "You have to talk about how to take care of the bus, and take care of the hotel, and how to behave when you eat. Those are things you tend to take for granted, but they are all important because they tend to tell people what you want your program to look like."

So, after the short meeting, we ventured out for dinner at the Olive Garden across from our Courtyard by Marriott hotel. The players all handled dinner fine and all is well.

While I knocked out a preview of tomorrow night's game, as well as editing a recap of the Crew teams' adventure to Augusta over the weekend, the team was getting together to watch some film of tomorrow night's foe, Florida A&M.

Tomorrow will be breakfast, another scouting session and a shoot around in the morning before the teams spends the afternoon relaxing before the game.

On Tuesday, the focus will turn to the second game of the road trip, Florida State.