Newington College Travels from Australia to SWLA for Sam Houston Basketball Tournament

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) – Newington College is a school in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, but this month the boys basketball team made the nearly 9,000 mile journey to Southwest Louisiana to begin a three-week trip in the United States.

The Wyvern kicked off their trip in Moss Bluff, playing in the Sam Houston tournament with one game on Friday (falling 59-49 to Jennings) and two games on Saturday, beating Covenant Christian 64-28, and then beating Sam Houston 47-43, to finish the tournament with a record of 2-1.

The trip is the beginning of two weeks of play where Newington played at Sam Houston, they will now travel to Baton Rouge, then New Orleans, and finish their competition portion of the trip in Houston before going to Los Angeles for a week off before returning to Australia.

“We’re a national team, we play in our national championships every year, our state and then we tour every second year to the states and every now and then we’ll go into Asia,” said Newington Head Coach Rex Nottage. “There’s a lot of reasons for it, one of them being it’s about obviously the basketball, education is really important and in our school system if we’re playing state, national, and international, the boys can get extra credits for university entries. I love the hospitality, I do love the food and we’ve really been enjoying our time. I just want to stress we’ve been treated so well, it’s everything we expected and more, and it’s been great for our boys to have the experience.”

So how did it come about? How does a team from Sydney, Australia end up playing a high school basketball tournament in Moss Bluff, Louisiana? Well for a little while it almost didn’t happen because Sam Houston Head Coach Jayce Hebert was a bit skeptical when he got an email from Australia.

“We were looking for teams to play in the tournament, and I got an email from some random Australian company asking about games in our tournament. At first I thought it was a scam to be honest with you, but I did some research on the company and on the school, and I found out it was legit, so we talked back and forth and we decided it would be a great opportunity for them to come play in our tournament, and a great opportunity for us to see a different style of play,” said Hebert.

Part of coming to Louisiana has been immersing themselves in the culture, and experiencing something different, part of that experience being of course trying Cajun food, and the cuisine that Louisiana offers.

“It’s been awesome, we got to try the food, the gumbo, we really liked it. But just the whole atmosphere, we really like it,” said Newington player Jesse Weinstein. “We haven’t really experienced much other than the basketball yet, I think we’re going shopping tomorrow and exploring a bit. So, you know, immersing yourself in other cultures is obviously a really good thing. I think we really appreciate it like a lot, but yeah, it’s good to get out of Australia and experience how other people live, and yeah, that’s the beautiful thing about basketball, you get to travel and experience new things.”

“We got to try the food and everything last night, when the boys saw it (Gumbo), they didn’t like the look of it, but as soon as it went in their mouths they loved it, I think we cleaned them out twice up there. Everyone here is just so friendly, and to be honest with you, it really just reinstates my faith in humanity because with everything going on in the world, when it comes down to the people, they’re really decent folks and we really appreciate that.

While Newington did find success in the Sam Houston tournament, American basketball rules are quite different than the rules Newington plays by, including the fact that there’s no shot clock for here, the charging rule, and more, and Weinstein says they still don’t fully understand the rules.

“To be honest, I still don’t know some of the rules here, but we found the charge rule pretty tricky. We got called for a few charges just because there’s no charge circle here, but it’s good for us because if we want to go play in college, there are different rules there so it’s good for us to experience it now.”

“This game is completely different, we play international basketball rules which means we have four 10 minute quarters, we have a 24 second shot clock, so my guys were a bit confused without one here. That said, that experience in itself is unique, and it’s great for our basketball knowledge and experience going forward,” said Nottage.

The experience hasn’t just been beneficial for Newington, Sam Houston Head Coach Jayce Hebert believes playing a team with the playing style of Newington will pay dividends for the Broncos.

“It’s been really cool for us from a human perspective getting to see them try gumbo for the first time, and things like that, but it’s been great in a basketball sense too. It’s a great experience for us to see a different style of basketball, and to play that level of competition. It doesn’t impact us for the power rankings so it’s cool to see that level of competition, and to be challenged.”

In addition to the competition, Newington plans to go to college and professional games here in the United States before returning to Australia.

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