The men’s basketball team will have to learn international basketball rules.

The Elis flew to Chengdu, China on Monday, and will spend nine days playing exhibition games against Chinese university teams. Their foreign tour on May 19 against the University of Electronic Science & Technology.

“Wonderful things can happen when you’re sitting next to someone on a plane ride for 16 hours,” head coach James Jones told the New Haven Register. “The entire experience is great for chemistry. You’re in a place where you have to depend on each other for everything.”

The Chinese government invited the Elis to make the trip, and will help defray its costs. The rest of its budget comes from an endowment given by John Lee ’58 that pays for the team to go abroad once every four years.

After the team’s May 19 game, it will take on Southwest University of Finance & Economics on May 20, Southwest Jiatong University

on May 21, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University on May 23.

Mangano gets a nod

Star center Greg Mangano ’12, who will return to the team next year after withdrawing his name from the NBA draft, has been invited to the American national team’s open tryouts in Colorado Springs, Colarado in July. He is unlikely to earn a spot on the team, but invitations are offered only to some of the country’s best players and considered an honor.

Bulldogs announce freshman class

Five incoming freshmen will join the basketball team next year as it looks to build upon its 8–6 Ivy League record. Choate Rosemary Hall postgraduate Brandon Sherrod, a 6-foot-6, 235-pound forward, was the New Haven Register’s Connecticut State Player of the Year in 2010, and declined offers from two schools in the vaunted Atlantic-10 Conference in order to come to Yale.

“He’s the most athletic post man that I’ve ever had,” Jones told the New Have Register.

Sherrod will be joined by Javier Duren, a 6-foot-4 point guard from Missourri; Armani Cotton, a 6-foot-6 small forward from New York City; and Matt Townsend, a 6-foot-7 dynamo who Jones called the “toughest kid I’ve ever seen.”

Finally, the 6-foot-11 Will Childs-Klein is expected to ride the bench as he is groomed to succeed Mangano.

This post has been edited since its original upload