The University of Toronto Varsity Blues men’s basketball team will travel abroad to Taoyuan County in Taiwan to participate in the 2008 Kainan University International Basketball Invitational. The UBC Thunderbirds join the Blues as the only two schools representing the CIS.

The tournament, which runs from June 2 – 5, is one of the largest college sporting events in Taiwan as college basketball teams from different parts of the world gather at the Kainan University gymnasium to compete for the coveted title.

Previous championship titleholders are Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2006 and Boston University in 2007.

The Blues will kick start the tournament when they take on National Central University (also from Taoyuan County) on June 2, at 3p.m. local (3a.m. EST). The next day the squad will face National Chengchi University (NCCU) from Taipei City at 2:30p.m. local (2:30a.m. EST). They will finish the round robin portion of the tournament when they meet the National Taiwan Sports University on June 4, at 2:30p.m. local (2:30a.m. EST).

Varsity Blues standout Nick Snow will be reporting from Taiwan periodically throughout the tournament. Be sure to check out ‘Nick’s Notes’ at http://varsityblues.ca/sports/mbasketball/

This will not be the team’s first trip overseas. In May of 2006, the Blues traveled to Tsukuba, Japan to play a series of exhibition games and came away with a perfect 3-0 record.

The Varsity Blues men’s basketball team finished the 2007-08 regular season in second place in the OUA East with a 17-5 record. The team attained one of their highest rankings in history when ranked No. 5 in the country but unfortunately lost in the OUA semi-final 63-60 to the Ottawa GeeGees, cutting their season short.

Mike De Giorgio and Rob Paris were both named OUA first team all-stars, while head coach Mike Katz was named OUA coach of the year and also honoured as the country’s top bench boss, claiming the Stuart W. Aberdeen Memorial trophy as the CIS coach of the year.