By Sue Kiesewetter
Enquirer contributor

TRENTON - Edgewood High School coach John Thomas isn't interested in the scouting report for today's basketball scrimmage games.

He's more interested in building a rapport between his players and their opponents - 25 teens ages 14-18 from the Cranbrook Schools in Sydney, Australia.

"I had one of those gut feelings it would be one of those neat experiences - not only for our players but our community,'' Thomas said. "Basketball is just a small part of it."

Over the next five days, the Australians will be in Southwest Ohio as part of a three-week trip to the United States centered on playing local basketball teams and a trip to Disneyland, before returning to Australia Jan. 18. They have already played Covington Catholic, as well as teams from Dayton, Ohio; Indiana, and Toronto, Canada.

When possible, arrangements are made so the Australian players stay in the homes of the students they are competing against. Time is set aside for the teens to get to know each other.

Today, they will play Edgewood High School. Monday, they'll take on the Trailblazers, a team of home-schooled teens. Tuesday they play at Lebanon and end Wednesday at Cincinnati Christian Schools.

"It will be kind of cool getting to talk to him,'' said Lebanon High School senior Tyler Pritchard, who will have an Australian teen shadow him at school. "Chances are he'll be more like me than I think. I want to pick the brain of someone from somewhere else.''

Pritchard said he's expecting the Australians to be competitive because "no one wants to travel that far to be beat bad. They're probably pretty good if they're traveling this far to play a game.''

Before today's 4:30 tip-off at Edgewood both teams will gather at 1 p.m. at the school to play video games, hang out and eat before the games begin. When the last game ends both teams will go out for a bite to eat. .

E-mail suek@infionline.net