MHERST - The chance to give the University of Massachusetts men's basketball team a chance to bond as a unit and experience new culture is coming with a price tag of approximately $110,000.

The Minutemen depart Sunday night for a 10-day, four-game tour of Greece.

Associate Athletic Director Al Rufe said the exact cost won't be determined until after the trip, when the final miscellaneous expenses are added.

Rufe said the money to fund the trip is coming from funds generated by basketball ticket sales, not money that would have gone to other areas of the athletic department.

"It's not student fee money or money allocated by the university for athletics," Rufe said. "It's from money that is generated by basketball ticket sales."

The Court Club, UMass' independent basketball booster club, raised approximately $10,800 for Lappas' wife and two children to make the trip.

The package for this tour requires a minimum of 25 people to go. UMass is sending exactly 25 (11 players, four coaches, two administrative assistants, two managers, a trainer, an academic advisior, the director of media relations and Lappas' wife Harriet and two children) at approximately $3,599 per person.

Lappas was scheduled to go to Greece with his Villanova team before he came to UMass. When he switched jobs, Villanova and the travel agent agreed to let the Minutemen take the trip.

UMass Athletic Director Bob Marcum considers the trip an investment in the program.

"For a new coaching staff, the chance to practice this many days and get to play is a huge advantage for them," Marcum said. "I think it's great for our players to get an early view of how our coaching staff is going to operate. I think the money we're spending on this is a minimum investment in a new coaching staff coming and the team that is already here."

Marcum added the trip could pay off in terms of recruiting as well.

"Coach is Greek," Marcum said. "And there is a history of some very fine basketball players from Greece playing in this country."

Lappas was surprised and appreciative to be able to take the Minutemen on the trip.

"It's a tremendous commitment to just walk in like I did and do something like this," he said. "You can't ask for more from a school. They thought this was something special and worthwhile for our kids cuturally and athletically. I was surprised. You're talking about such a steep price in three months. For them to say just go, I was surprised."

Lappas expects the trip to be worth it.

"I don't think there is any question it's going to help us," Lappas said. "No matter what kind of a season we have, it's going to help us."

he University of Massachusetts men's basketball team apparently is insulated from the current round of budget cuts on campus. At a time when the university is reducing its budget by more than $5.6 million, the basketball team has been enjoying an $11,000-a-day junket to Greece.

The team returns Thursday after a 10-day trip in which it played four games, stayed at five-star hotels and dined on sumptuous meals. One of the most lavish dinners, featuring fillet mignon of veal and held in an exclusive seaside resort, was sponsored by University President William Bulger, who flew from London to spend a few days with the team.

We don't begrudge the basketball team a nice trip. The players work very hard for their scholarships and men's basketball is the only revenue-generating sport at UMass. The problem is the symbolism.

Professors and students no doubt see the contradiction in providing basketball players and their entourage (14 people in a traveling party of 25) with an expensive vacation when, back in Amherst, there will be cuts in mail service, maintenance and trash pickup. Bulger, a scholar of the classics, seems to have forgotten about Nero, the emperor who fiddled while Rome burned.

The Athletic Department received a 5 percent cut in its budget this year, yet agreed to spend $110,000 to sponsor the trip under new coach Steve Lappas. While the money will come from ticket revenue the team generates, it means some other team will do with less as a result.

In demonstrating a troubling insensitivity to the fiscal problems facing the university, the trip serves to strengthen the impression that big-time athletic departments have little to do with the school to which they are supposedly attached.

Matters are seriously out of whack when a university that has a hard time providing the basics for all students has money to support extravagant trips by the basketball team.