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Toronto to welcome Friends of Peay

Josh Terry, Ed Daniel

Austin Peay guard Josh Terry (23) shoots over Murray State forward Ed Daniel (2) in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012, in Clarksville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mike Strasinger)

AP

Exhibition season always brings exciting travel opportunities for college hoops teams, with some flying off to Italy, France or other exotic destinations.

The Austin Peay Governors don’t have quite such an exciting trip in store, but a nice August sojourn to the Great White North will allow the team to escape the summer heat of Clarksville, Tennessee and explore the Toronto/Niagara Falls area, while working on valuable skills and team chemistry.

“This type trip is most advantageous when you have either a new coaching staff coming in or you have a new team, one in which there are young or guys who have not played a lot of minutes,” APSU coach Dave Loos said in a university press release. “We are the latter. We have four freshmen coming in and we have other young guys who have not played a lot of minutes previously. This will give an opportunity to gain some experience and hopefully begin developing some team chemistry. I think this is going to help improve our team.”

Anyone who knows the Peay will have a bit of a chuckle at Loos’ opening statement. The notion of an inexperienced coach in Clarksville is difficult to grasp, since Loos has been in charge since 1990, and doesn’t seem likely to go anywhere any time soon.

That doesn’t mean there’s no change on the horizon. This season, the tourney-savvy Belmont Bruins join the Ohio Valley Conference, bringing the league to 12 members and a split divisional format. The upgrade in competition will increase pressure on the young Governors, who last made the NCAA tournament in 2008.

Eric Angevine is the editor of Storming the Floor. He tweets @stfhoops. He is painfully aware that his pop-culture reference in the title of this article was a bit weak.