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Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim would like to plan a trip to Italy this summer for his young Orange team.

(Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, N.Y. — With five freshmen plus a transfer set to transition to the Syracuse basketball team for the 2013-14 season, Jim Boeheim is hoping to get his group better acquainted this summer.

The SU coach said Tuesday he is in the early stages of setting up a trip to Italy for his young team.

"We're hoping to get a foreign trip set up in August," Boeheim said, "so we can play some of these guys."

The NCAA allows college basketball teams to play on foreign soil once every four years. Teams that schedule games outside the United States can practice for as many as 10 days during the summer to prepare for that overseas excursion.

Duke transfer Michael Gbinije joins the Orange in earnest after sitting out a redshirt season. SU will also add Tyler Ennis (St. Benedict's Prep), Tyler Roberson (Roselle Catholic), B.J. Johnson (Lower Merion High School), Ron Patterson (Brewster Academy) and Chinonso Obokoh (Rochester's Bishop Kearney) to a lineup that may or may not include C.J. Fair — SU's most veteran player. (Boeheim declined comment on Fair's NBA Draft status.)

Boeheim mentioned the possibility of the trip while discussing Gbinije's probable role on the 2013-14 team.

"Next year's up in the air," Boeheim said, "because we have so many young players."

Boeheim discussed a couple other items that have cropped up in recent college basketball conversations. Decisions on two topics will be determined during NCAA meetings next month.

Those two topics:

Should teams be allowed to practice earlier than the traditional mid-October start date?

The NCAA's Board of Directors will vote on whether to permit practices to start either the last week of September or the first week in October. Teams could be allowed as many as 30 practices before their first game in early November.

"I'm not a big proponent of this. I like starting in October," Boeheim said.

The NCAA already allows coaching instruction in smaller groups before the official start of practice. Boeheim said he'd be in favor of an alteration "if we were able to get a couple extra days" of practice. But he did not seem adamant about it.

Should the shot clock be decreased from 35 seconds to 30 seconds?



The men's basketball rules committee will meet in mid-May to decide on whether to change the 35-second shot clock.

"I'd like to see a shot clock moved, but I don't think that it will," Boeheim said. "I'd like to see it at 24, but I don't think we'll ever get that. But I'd take the 30."

Syracuse's 2-3 zone has reduced teams — especially unaware NCAA Tournament teams — to picking and poking at the zone to uncover exploitable seams, often with hasty, poor results as the shot clock ticks to zero. The shorter shot clock would seem to heighten that challenge. But Boeheim offered another perspective on a shorter shot clock.

"Good teams can get a good shot within 20 seconds," he said. "But I think (a shorter clock) would prevent teams from holding the ball for as long as they do."