'A big experience': Wildcats dunk in Dead Sea on Day 4 of Mideast hoops tour

EIN BOKEK, Israel — Kylan Boswell took a few steps into the famously salty water off the lowest beach on Earth, looked down at his feet and turned his head backward to ask his fellow Arizona Wildcats a question.

“Nothing lives out here, right?” Boswell said.

Other than some bacteria and other microorganisms, no. No fish, no sharks, no jellyfish, nothing that can bite. They call it the Dead Sea for a reason, after all.

But, for the Arizona men’s basketball team, an afternoon visit to the Dead Sea was also about life, the chance to grow physically and emotionally while maybe also healing a bit in mineral-rich waters that many have long believed are medicinal.

That was the Wildcats’ goal Sunday, anyway, after a busy morning of practicing and holding a youth clinic in Jerusalem. They checked out around noon, then stuffed their bags into two buses that headed east on Highway 1, slipping into the West Bank and whizzing steeply downhill through the Judean Desert before turning right to hug the western shore of what is really a two-part lake.

Finally, after about 90 minutes, the Wildcats crossed back into Israel territory and to a resort zone in the southern part of the Dead Sea, where pumped-in water keeps it from shrinking like the larger north portion.

Ignoring the high-rising McDonald’s arches across the street, the Wildcats strolled into the Herbert Samuel Milos Dead Sea resort, past the hotel’s pools and cabanas, and out to a strip of awnings and chairs along a pathway that fronts the Dead Sea.

Then they quickly swapped basketball shorts for bathing suits, with some rubbing in mud treatments they were told was good for their skin.

Then the Wildcats waded gingerly into the water.

“Ohh,” senior guard Pelle Larsson said. “It’s hot!”

That may have been the biggest surprise. Everyone knew the Dead Sea was salty. Everyone knew they would be able to float, at least probably everyone other than center Oumar Ballo.

“Wow. I’ve never felt this before,” Ballo said, after turning into a 260-pound buoy. “I’ve never floated in my life.”

But the heat was overwhelming, in and out of the water, even for a group from Tucson. On a beachfront that sits at 1,412 feet below sea level, the outside temperature Sunday was over 110 degrees, heading for 115, with a humidity level of about 50%

The water temp ranged well into the high 90s, depending on the area the players bobbed around in.

It was uncomfortable — strangly hot, salty and oily all at once — and the crusty salt layer underneath the shallow water was coarse and somewhat difficult to walk on. But everyone was smiling.

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“It was cool to be in the water and see everybody floating and having fun,” guard Jaden Bradley said. “It was a big experience.”

The days to come will reveal whether it was also therapeutic. The Dead Sea attracts visitors seeking help for a variety of ailments such as arthritis, rheumatism, eczema, and fungus. UA team doctor Stephen Paul wondered if it might even help him.

“I’m not a disbeliever,” Paul said.

However, the Wildcats also found Sunday that the Dead Sea can also hurt. At least one had issues with the salty water getting in his eyes while a team manager broke the skin of his toe on the beach — and was quickly attacked by the water.

“It literally feels like it’s on fire,” he said shortly afterward, sitting in the hotel lobby.

Paul and UA trainer Justin Kokoskie kept graduate assistant Przemek Karnowski from a similar fate. During the Wildcats’ practice Sunday, Karnowski took a hit to his hand around the basket, prompting Paul to sew him up with six stitches.

The stitches, and a bandage over the area, would be no match for the salinity of the Dead Sea. A lone plastic wrap over the bandage could have made it even worse.

“The salt would kill that,” Kokoskie said.

But since Karnowski still wanted to experience the Dead Sea, Kokoskie said, he and Paul came up with a plan. They wrapped his arm in ice to keep the plastic wrap cool, then used Flexiwrap, a clear, thin tape to seal off the edges and keep out the salty water.

Karnowski still held his arm up as he floated on the Dead Sea, but even an inadvertent splash couldn’t penetrate the wrap. After retreating to the resort pool without incident, Karnowski saluted Paul.

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“Great job, doc,” Karnowski said.

Actually, by that time, nearly all of the Wildcats had shifted their afternoon into a pool party, swapping stories and smiles in the also warm but much less intrusive pool water of the Milos resort.

They stayed in the pool area for nearly an hour. Then the Wildcats showered, changed and headed toward their buses for a two-hour ride to their next stop, in Tel Aviv, with yet another Middle East memory sunk into their minds.

Another life experience.

“That’s what I’m into,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said.