Buffaloes To Participate In 2019 Pac-12 China Game

BOULDER – The University of Colorado men's basketball team will play a nonconference game against Arizona State in China, in November 2019, the Pac-12 Conference announced late Friday night.

The Buffaloes and Sun Devils will meet in the fifth edition of the Pac-12 China Game presented by Alibaba Group. Longtime Pac-12 partner Federation of University Sports of China (FUSC), which operates under China's Ministry of Education, will serve as the co-host for the game.

"Our team is thrilled to travel to China next year," CU Athletic Director Rick George said. "It will be a great learning experience for our student-athletes and a great opportunity for them to learn a different culture while simultaneously playing an exhibition game against a local Chinese team and a regular season game against Arizona State.

"Furthermore, we have over 1,000 CU Boulder international students from China, our largest enrollment of any foreign country. So knowing this game is happening in China will be a point of pride for our current students and serve as good exposure for future prospective students from China. This will be a great opportunity both culturally and athletically for all involved and we are looking forward to participating in this game."

The matchup between Colorado and Arizona State, tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 9 and for national broadcast in both the U.S. and China, will not count as a conference contest. The teams are slated to meet only once during the 2019-20 Pac-12 regular season as part of the league's annual 18-game rotation model.

This will be the first time the Pac-12 China game has featured two conference teams. The previous editions, including this year's California-Yale contest, has had one Pac-12 team and one from another NCAA Division I conference.

"It's a great opportunity; a once in a lifetime trip for our players and staff," Colorado head coach Tad Boyle said. "And it's not just about basketball; it's going to be a great experience for our players outside of basketball. It's a great initiative for our university, to get over there to China where we have a lot of students now and continue to recruit students from."

The Pac-12 China Game is the flagship event of Pac-12 Global, designed to grow the global popularity of Pac-12 athletic programs and universities, fostering cultural exchange through sport, and creating unique educational experiences for Pac-12 student-athletes.

"We are proud to welcome these two excellent programs to China," Alibaba Group Vice Chairman Joe Tsai said. "This will be a once in a lifetime education experience for these players to learn about the history, culture, and economy of China, and to help serve as global ambassadors for America."

This will be the first intercollegiate regular season event for a Colorado Athletics program in China, or the Eastern Hemisphere for that matter. The Buffaloes have played in a handful of regular season events outside the United States. Both basketball programs have played in Puerto Rico; the men in 1998-99 and the women in 2005-06. Colorado's men's and women's golf teams have both competed Mexico and Puerto Rico, and the women will play a tournament in the Dominican Republic in March 2019.

Many Colorado student-athletes have taken advantage of out-of-season foreign tours or World University Games competitions over the last couple of decades. Nine Buffaloes that would be on next year's roster in China were part of the team's preseason foreign tour to Italy in August 2017.

"With the high expectation and enthusiasm of the basketball fans in China, we will spare no efforts to work closely with the Pac-12 for the upcoming game in 2019 and welcome the first-ever two Pac-12 member university teams to showcase their tactics and passionate spirit," FUSC President Xue Yanqing said.

The announcement was made before the tipoff of the 2018 California and Yale China Game at Baoshan Sports Center in Shanghai, and one day after another successful edition of the China-U.S. University Sports and Education Summit at the Suzhou New District Cultural and Sports Center. The summit is an annual staple of the Pac-12 China Game and brings together university students, administrators, coaches, sports industry experts, and business and political leadership from China and the U.S. The Pac-12 and Alibaba partnership includes Alibaba's continued sponsorship of the China Game through 2020 along with distribution of Pac-12 content in China across both digital and linear platforms through 2024.

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