LA Tech men’s basketball announces foreign tour trip to Costa Rica

RUSTON – The Louisiana Tech men’s basketball team will get a jump-start to the 2018-19 season as the Bulldogs will be participating in a seven-day foreign tour to Costa Rica in August.

The upcoming foreign tour was 100 percent funded through private donations to the Louisiana Tech Athletic Club. No state dollars were used to fund this trip.

Participating in the foreign tour, something a Division I team can only do every four years per NCAA rules, will allow the Bulldogs to have a maximum of 10 practices prior to leaving.

After the practices leading up to the trip, LA Tech will depart on Aug. 11 and take on two professional teams in international exhibition games.

“We are excited to represent Louisiana Tech University in Costa Rica this summer”, head coach Eric Konkol said. “This is a tremendous growth opportunity for our program and will create wonderful, lifelong memories for our student-athletes.

“The additional practices, the competition in Costa Rica and the time spent together learning about another country will be invaluable for the development of our team. This is part of the University’s commitment to an unparalleled educational experience. We are thankful for the very generous contributions from our donors and the vision of Dr. Guice and Tommy McClelland for making this possible.”

While in Costa Rica, the Bulldogs will also get a chance to take part in community service activities while also experiencing the local culture, including excursions and other team-bonding events.

Costa Rica is the second smallest country in Central America, situated between the Caribbean Sea to the East and the Pacific Ocean to the West in the midst of the Tropics.

Through time, Costa Rica evolved from volcanoes growing out of the ocean creating a natural bridge between North and South America to form a mountainous terrain as well as beautiful coastline of long, sandy beaches.

LA Tech last took a foreign tour to the Bahamas back in 2014.

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