Sightseeing Huskies to conclude trip with an unprecedented season opener in China

At the Hangzhou, China, headquarters of the Alibaba Group, Washington Huskies men’s basketball coach Lorenzo Romar tried to teach a simple hand signal to one of the world’s most powerful businessmen.

The Huskies are overseas to play their regular-season opener against the Texas Longhorns on Friday night in Shanghai (7 p.m. PT on ESPN, or 11 a.m. Saturday in China time), part of a Pac-12 initiative that commissioner Larry Scott hopes will develop into an annual tipoff game in the country.

It will be the first regular-season sporting event, collegiate or professional, played by U.S. teams on Chinese soil.

And as coaches, players and cheerleaders from both programs posed for a photograph this week with Jack Ma, the founder and executive chairman of Alibaba — the world’s largest online and mobile commerce company — Romar leaned in to show Ma how to arrange his fingers in the shape of a “W,” a common gesture that Huskies players use to signify their UW allegiance.

Judging by photos taken by reporters in attendance, Ma appeared to give it his best effort, but couldn’t quite master it on his first try.

It was a humorous moment in what has seemingly been an enjoyable trip for the Huskies, who departed Seattle on Sunday, took a tour of Alibaba headquarters the day after they arrived, and have spent the past few days touring Hangzhou and Shanghai and participating in a series of cultural activities.

Players took a two-week, for-credit class earlier this year that taught them basic Mandarin — “ni hao” means hello, for example — to help them navigate their way.

In addition, a delegation of UW upper-campus employees — including president Ana Marie Cauce — made the trip to meet with Chinese education and government leaders and participate in the U.S.-China Collegiate Sports & Education Forum.

Scott said the UW was selected for the maiden voyage, so to speak, “because of the pioneering spirit, the technology-forward view of the university, (and) good connections in China. … I think this type of thinking is part of the DNA of the UW.”

Also, the Huskies are going to play a basketball game on Friday night against a Texas team that played in the NCAA Tournament last season, and that was the crux of Romar’s message to his players as they prepared for this trip.

See the sights. Enjoy the sights. Photograph the sights. But don’t lose sight of the primary mission.

Fifth-year senior point guard Andrew Andrews has visited China before, as part of a Pac-12 all-star team that traveled there in the summer of 2014. So now, he says, “I’m just ready to play in the game.”

“There is a lot going on, and there is that potential for us to be distracted,” Romar said last week. “But we try to make it clear to everyone involved that we’re going out there to play a game. And the other things that come with it are going to be things that our guys aren’t going to forget, but we want to make sure that we’re not distracted by the off-the-court positives that are going on, because they are positives.”

On the court, the Huskies will have to deal with the hectic defensive style employed by Shaka Smart, who garnered national acclaim as the successful head coach of the VCU Rams before taking the Texas job last offseason. The Longhorns are led by junior point guard Isaiah Taylor, who topped the team with 13.1 points per game last season.

Texas returns three other starters and 11 letter winners from a team that finished 20-14 last season and lost to Butler in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

UW will likely debut a starting lineup that includes four true freshmen — Dejounte Murray, Matisse Thybulle, Noah Dickerson and Marquese Chriss — who will be playing regular-season college basketball for the first time. Andrews will serve as point guard.

And Romar knows Texas will challenge the young Huskies defensively.

“It’s as if there are eight guys on the floor sometimes,” Romar said. “It’s a frenetic pace. They’re all over the place. They play hard, and they’re scrappy. And they’re fun to watch, if you’re not playing against them.”

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 10:31 PM with the headline "Sightseeing Huskies to conclude trip with an unprecedented season opener in China."