TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida State women’s basketball team will travel to Senegal and Italy next month as part of a foreign tour experience presented by Nike.
The Seminoles will take part in community service projects, play four games against foreign competition and experience new cultures in the two countries from Aug. 6-16.
“We are super excited and very thankful to Nike for sponsoring our trip,” Florida State head coach Sue Semrau said. “These foreign tour trips are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for our student-athletes and I’m so glad that we can provide this experience at FSU. We have a lot of new pieces on our team for the upcoming season and this will allow us to bond as players and a staff while playing games, giving back and seeing some incredible sites. Senegal has some breathtaking areas and a very powerful history, while Italy will give our players an opportunity to see some of the world’s most beautiful art, museums and architecture.”
FSU will face Senegal’s national team in Dakar on Aug. 8-9, before taking on the Italian Select team in Florence on Aug. 13 and the Chemcats Chemnitz in Lecco, Italy on Aug. 15.
In Senegal, the Seminoles will take part in community service projects at an orphanage and give a skills clinic in Dakar. Additionally, the team will tour historic Gorée Island and go on a Safari at the Bandia Animal Park while in Senegal.
In Italy, the FSU group is expected to visit the Academia Gallery in Florence, the Ponte Vecchio bridge, the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa and Lake Como.
The Academia Gallery features original art from Michelangelo, while Ponte Vecchio is the oldest bridge in Florence – built in 1345. FSU will take a cable railway through the Italian Alps over Lake Como. The Noles are also scheduled to visit the Santa Maria delle Grazie, home of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”
Every four years NCAA teams are allowed to make a summer foreign tour trip. These trips provide student-athletes the opportunity to visit parts of the world they’ve never seen before and experience brand-new cultures, while facing diverse competition in preparation for the upcoming season.
Florida State Women’s Hoops Season Tickets Available Now
Season tickets for the 2013-14 Florida State women’s basketball season are on sale now and can be purchased at Seminoles.com or by calling the Seminole Ticket Office at 1-888-FSUNole.
Season tickets are $50 for adults and $25 for youth and seniors. For the third year in a row, FSU will offer a "Family Pack" for women's hoops season tickets which includes two adults and two youth tickets for $99. Additional youth tickets can be added $15 each.
FSU will host eight Atlantic Coast Conference games in 2013-14, including its first-ever matchup with Notre Dame, who is coming off of three consecutive NCAA Final Four appearances and joined the ACC on July 1. The Seminoles will also welcome inter-state rival Miami, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Boston College and Virginia Tech.
Additionally, Florida State will face Michigan State at the Donald L. Tucker Center on Dec. 4 as part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, and host at least five other non-conference opponents in November and December.
“We are excited to announce our season tickets going on sale,” head coach Sue Semrau said. “We will welcome some great teams to the Tucker Center for another challenging home schedule. Conference expansion has made the ACC the nation’s premier basketball conference, and we will host Notre Dame for the first time in school history, as well as our traditional rivals Miami, Duke and North Carolina among others. As part of our non-conference schedule, Michigan State will be another great opponent as the Spartans are a perennial NCAA Tournament team. We are looking forward to having our fans come and support us during another exciting season.”
The full schedule with dates and times will be released at a later date.
The Noles will welcome at least five teams (Notre Dame, Duke, North Carolina, Miami and Michigan State) that appeared in the 2013 NCAA Tournament.
The Seminoles will look to ride the momentum of last year’s 23-win season into the 2013-14 campaign behind First Team All-ACC senior Natasha Howard, senior point guard Yashira “Cheetah” Delgado and versatile redshirt sophomore guard/forward Morgan Jones.
Howard is the ACC’s active leader in career double-doubles (26) and she has career averages of 11.8 points, 7.7 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 1.1 blocks in 96 career games.
Delgado shared floor general duties last season and dished 148 assists (4.5 per game) – the most of any returning player in the ACC.
Jones, a former McDonald’s All-American from Lake Mary, Fla., sat out last season after transferring to Florida State from Northwestern, where she averaged 13.9 points, 6.0 boards and 3.3 assists and captured honorable mention All-Big Ten honors.
The Noles also return redshirt junior forward Lauren Coleman and welcome six newcomers headlined by 6-5 center Kai James, a consensus Top-20 recruit who played in the 2013 McDonald’s All-American Game and competed for Team USA at the 2012 U17 World Championships.
