PINE BLUFF -- George Ivory approached Ghiavonni Robinson with a scholarship offer and a promise three years ago.
"He told me we're going to travel the world, and see a lot of things and play some games," said Robinson, recalling a recruiting pitch from the Arkansas-Pine Bluff basketball coach.
Consider the promise kept.
Robinson, who grew up in Itta Bena, Miss., a town of about 2,000 in the Mississippi Delta, said he had never stepped foot on an airplane before college. Now, 2 1/2 seasons into his UAPB career he's fluent in the processes involving security lines, layovers and overpriced fast food.
That's because the two months of each UAPB men's basketball season are spent criss-crossing the country playing some of college basketball's biggest names for an experience not otherwise attainable and a paycheck to dump into an athletic budget always looking for a boost.
Ivory, in his eighth season at UAPB, has made a practice of wild road trips to start the season. He has yet to coach a home nonconference game. Less than 27 percent (65) of Ivory's 241 career games have been coached inside H.O. Clemmons Arena.
Ivory explained his reasoning when he arrived in 2008, and he's never wavered. It allows players not recruited by some of college basketball's biggest programs to try to beat them on their home floors, and each game can add around $70,000 to the coffers.
"I think it's going to help us," Ivory said. "You play some good games and then some bad games, and you realize, it's time for them to grow up and understand you've got to mature faster."
This season's schedule has been unlike anything Ivory has put together, though, and has even him second-guessing his methods.
UAPB (3-16, 1-4), which starts another road trip at Prairie View A&M tonight, played 17 road games to start the season -- the most since Ivory arrived. When the Golden Lions played host to Southern on Jan. 16, they were the last of 351 Division I men's teams to play at home. And the miles traveled during those road trips almost assuredly dwarf anything else Ivory has put together.
Over the course of 60 days, UAPB played in 12 different states, against teams from 12 different conferences and in four different time zones.
They played as far west as Honolulu and as far east as Brooklyn, N.Y. They played in big cities like Seattle and small towns like Huntsville, Ala.
UAPB's first 17 games -- 14 nonconference games and three SWAC games -- required about 27,400 miles of travel, about 2,500 miles more than the earth's circumference. That fact was lost on UAPB, until a member of the ESPN3.com crew doing its Dec.13 game at Iowa State added it up for them.
"Knowing that we traveled all the way across the world and a couple of more thousand miles," said Robinson, who leads the team in scoring at 11.8 points per game. "It's crazy."
Ivory is at the helm of the craziness, and even if he's considering some adjustments in the future -- he said Siena could be coming to Pine Bluff as part of a tournament next year -- he is under no formal pressure or instruction to do so.
UAPB Athletic Director Lonza Hardy said he gives Ivory freedom to schedule how he chooses and the only thing required is Hardy's signature on the game contract. They've had to adjust the contract language a few times, but Hardy said he's never said no to any game.
"As long as it's not a detriment to the student athlete's welfare and most of those away games you can fly to and you're not on buses, and as long as it's an experience the student-athletes enjoy," Hardy said, "I really don't have much problem with it."
The revenue certainly helps.
In Ivory's first six seasons as coach -- the seasons in which annual financial reports submitted to the NCAA are available -- men's basketball annually brought in anywhere from $375,000 to more than $750,000 from guarantee game contracts and a total of more than $3.5 million.
"It's a tremendous help," Hardy said.
UAPB has installed a new gym floor and a scoreboard at H.O. Clemmons Arena since the road trips began. Hardy said next on the list is a scorer's table with rotating advertisements and other things to "tidy up our basketball arena." Ivory would like to add a staff position, maybe a secretary or a academic advisor.
"Just to do some things to help us out," Ivory said.
Not that Ivory does it just for the money.
His players, for instance, were in Hawaii preparing for a game against the Warriors when most of UAPB's students were finishing the semester.
It was a nice trip, but it was the most grueling.
UAPB beat Southeastern Louisiana on Nov. 28 in a tournament in Brooklyn, N.Y., flew to Little Rock, then bused to Pine Bluff. A day later, the Golden Lions bused from Pine Bluff to Little Rock, flew to Atlanta, then to Honolulu. Then, after the game, they flew back to Atlanta, then to Little Rock and bused to Pine Bluff -- about 9,972 miles in four days. One day later, it was back on the bus to the airport, where they would depart for Blacksburg, Va., to play Virginia Tech.
"To go to Hawaii, and some kids probably had never been there, and to play against a quality basketball team, if we could do it again, I'd do it again," Ivory said.
The trip all the way to Virginia a day after returning from Hawaii wasn't preferred, but Ivory said it was the last game to get added to the schedule and there were few other options at the time. Along the way, Ivory said he's seen his team's legs go at various times.
The Golden Lions beat Seattle to open the season, then were within one point of Oklahoma State at halftime. A Dec. 5 game at Virginia Tech was followed by eight days offs for final exams. The Golden Lions then traveled to Iowa State, and played the then-No. 4 ranked team to within 14.
Two days later, against Santa Clara, Ivory said his team's legs went in the second half of a 69-57 loss. Four days after that was a 94-54 loss at Texas Tech in Lubbock, and then a 65-58 loss at Ohio. The low point might have occurred on Dec. 29, when a day after returning from a holiday break UAPB it lost 78-25 at Missouri.
The eight-hour bus trip from Pine Bluff to Columbia, mostly on two-lane roads, took its toll.
"We probably should have flown to that one," Ivory said.
Ivory said they didn't come back with any horror stories. No lost bags and no players who overslept and missed a flight back from Athens, Ohio. One player left a pair of shoes in the hotel room. Ivory said they bring extra necessities, like tooth brushes and other items, in case of the inevitable slip of the mind. This team has had a lot of practice at traveling.
The road trips will never be completely gone from UAPB's schedule -- the benefits are too great and home games are too hard to acquire. But Ivory said he is adamant about staying home some next season, or at least take shorter road trips. In addition to the potential home game against Siena, Ivory said there's talk with UALR about a four-team, two-day tournament in Little Rock.
If it happens, Ivory and his players won't be considered world travelers again a year from now.
"In town one day, and gone the next, it's hard on the kids," Ivory said. "I say it every year, but I think I'm going to try it next year. Because this was a hard trip this year."
Sports on 01/23/2016