The University of Idaho senior forward Arkadiy Mkrtychyan has been putting in minutes on the basketball court this summer, nearly 9,000 miles away.
Mkrtychyan has been suiting up for his home squad, Team Armenia, in the qualifying rounds of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Pre-Qualifiers.
Since Aug. 2, the team has been competing in pre-cup qualifying rounds to determine whether or not it will receive a bid to the international contest hosted in China in the summer of 2019.
Prior to Aug. 2, 24 of 32 teams had already qualified for the tournament. Armenia was one of the 13 teams that had to compete in a home-and-away round robin tournament featuring six games in 17 days to decide the final eight qualifiers.