MONTREAL, Quebec -- Day one of our Canadian adventure was a whirlwind tour of far-away cities. Okay, maybe not quite so exotic. Our sight-seeing was limited to the inside of airport terminals, and those locales were mostly American.
 
What do Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, Newark and Toronto have in common?
 
The last-minute cancelation of our original flight sent small groups of Shockers shotgunning across the country and through each of these cities en route to Montreal.
 
We're grateful for our tour organizer, Damon Stephenson and his guys at IndiSports. They received word at around 5:45 a.m. (just over an hour before our scheduled takeoff) that mechanical issues had kept our plane from reaching Wichita and that there was little chance the team would reach Canada on Friday.
 
Instead, they scrambled to get us onto a number of different flights and were there to collect us as we straggled into the Montreal airport at varying times throughout the evening.
 
Some of the more creative itineraries were reminiscent of those frequent flier tickets or economy fares, where the ticket may be discounted but at the cost of a long day spent in travel purgatory.
 
Coach Marshall and his family were rebooked on another morning flight that included a slight detour through Houston on the way to Canada.
 
A couple of other staffers found themselves headed from Denver to Newark to Montreal over a span of 12 hours.
 
Luckily, the players had a far less dramatic experience. The majority were able to return to campus to catch up on sleep before a 3 p.m. flight out to Chicago, and most made it into Montreal between 9 p.m. and Midnight.
 
All the pain was well worth it, because reaching Montreal before nightfall allowed us to keep our exhibition schedule in tact.
 
A good night's sleep and a big breakfast will hopefully be enough to re-charge the batteries, because it will be a quick turnaround before the Saturday opener against UQAM at 1 p.m. ET.
 
Speaking of UQAM… here is the scouting report on our first opponent:
 

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UNIVERSITY OF QUEBEC AT MONTREAL
 
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Arena: UQAM Sports Centre
Website: sports.uqam.ca/citadins (French)
Twitter: @Citadins (French)
 
The University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM for short) is a French-language university based in downtown Montreal. With an enrollment of over 40,000 students (including nearly 35,000 undergrads) it's the largest of the 10 schools within the University of Quebec system.
 
2015-16 Review --
Overall: 19-17
Non-Conference: 11-7
RSEQ: 7-9 (3rd/5 teams)
Postseason: 1-1, RSEQ Tournament Runner-Up
 
While not a traditionally strong program, UQAM basketball appears to be on the rise under second-year head coach Nate Philippe who posted a 19-17 record in his debut season after inheriting a squad that had won just 11 times in the two previous years combined.
 
Philippe brings high-level hoops experience with five years in the NCAA Division I ranks as an assistant at North Dakota (2010-11), Maine (2011-13) and American (2013-15). Prior to that, he was a head coach on the AAU circuit with Grassroots Elite – the same organization that produced Shocker big man Kadeem Coleby.
 
Most of the key contributors from UQAM's 2015-16 squad, which posted the school's first winning record since 2010, are scheduled to return, including the top three scorers.
 
Fourth-year small forward Kewyn Blain -- the school's first-ever All-Canadian selection -- averaged 17.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 2.7 steals in 2015-16 on his way to conference player of the year honors.
 
Point guard Greishe Clerjuste (16.2 points) landed second team all-conference status, and shooting guard Charles Miller (11.4 points) was a dangerous three-point threat after transferring in at semester from NCAA Division II, Upper Iowa.
 
Blain and Clerjuste (along with Davidson Joseph) were part of a UQAM mini-squad that won a Gold Medal last fall while representing Canada at the 2015 FISU World University 3x3 Championships and later competed in the FIBA 3x3 All-Stars in Qatar.
 
Thanks to the RESQ's quadruple round-robin regular season format, the Citadins became well-acquainted with future WSU foe McGill, which defeated them in three of the four conference matchups and once more in the RESQ Tournament Championship.
 
Scouting Report:
 
Guard-oriented team with a very good backcourt… Excellent perimeter defense helped them rank in the top-10 nationally in opponent field goal percentage (7th, .381) and opponent three-point field goal percentage (8th, .294) during CIS portion of the 2015-16 season.

UQAM vs. NCAA Division I schools --
Summer (in Canada): 0-14
NCAA Preseason Exhibitions (in U.S.): 0-2
Overall: 0-16
 
This is UQAM's first action against an NCAA Division I opponent since the summer of 2014 when they lost a pair of games to Loyola Maryland (84-67) and Indiana (109-77)… The Citadins are 0-14 all-time when hosting summer exhibitions against traveling D-I squads… The majority of the losses have been lopsided, though there have been a couple of close calls, including a 75-65 overtime loss to Hampshire in 2011 and a 73-69 setback against Towson in 2009… WSU's MVC rival Illinois State blasted UQAM 94-52 during its own 2011 Canadian tour.
 
UQAM's 2016 summer schedule also includes Arkansas-Pine Bluff (Aug. 8), Florida A&M (Aug. 13), plus one Division II team during the month of August.