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MUNCIE, Ind. – American Airlines Flight 482, loaded with the tallest athletes at Duncanville, touched down near the tallest buildings in Indianapolis. It was two days after Christmas, and the biggest name in Dallas-area basketball had arrived at another big-time event.

Well, almost. There was still a 90-minute bus ride to Muncie, Ind., where most of the buildings weren't much taller than Duncanville's 6-10 center, Perry Jones.

"All of the sudden, we're seeing barns, farms and countryside," forward Roger Franklin said, sitting on a double bed in the hotel room he shared with forward Shawn Williams. "I was thinking we were in the middle of nowhere."

It might've felt that way as the players rolled into Muncie for the T-Mobile Invitational. Muncie, home to Ball State University, bone-chilling winters and fewer than 70,000 residents, was hardly familiar to the players from suburban Dallas.

"This is just like Hoosiers out here," Williams said.

But Jimmy Chitwood and his teammates in the movie Hoosiers would never travel out of state for a game. Duncanville has done it three times this season – to Kentucky, Florida and Indiana – and will play in New Brunswick, N.J., this month.

Mike Kunstadt, editor of Texashoops.com, said it's probably the most out-of-state trips a Texas high school team has ever taken.

And next season?

"We'll travel as much or more," Duncanville coach Phil McNeely said.

There are two big reasons.

Duncanville has lost to only two Texas teams in the last three seasons, so the Panthers are seeking stiffer competition. More important, however, is that Duncanville doesn't have to foot the bill.

"Everything's paid," McNeely said. "Otherwise we wouldn't be going across the street."

Tournament organizers pay for everything because the out-of-state events want Duncanville, which has three seniors who have orally committed to Division I teams – Williams to Texas and Franklin and point guard Reger Dowell to Oklahoma State. Duncanville also has a pair of juniors, Jones and forward Julian Washburn, whom Rivals.com ranks in the top 100 nationally in the Class of 2010. Junior guard Jamison Sterns is also a Division I prospect.

Duncanville has been loaded since the 2006-07 season. That's when the Panthers won the Class 5A state title, finished 39-0 and were HoopsUSA.com's mythical national champions. Duncanville started getting its choice of invitationals, which generally fill their slots at least a year in advance.

Duncanville was so hot midway through last season that an organizer of the City of Palms Classic in Fort Myers, Fla., followed the team to a tournament in South Carolina in hopes of luring the Panthers to his tournament this year.

It worked.

"It was great," Franklin said of the six-day, pre-Christmas event, which included a trip to the beach. "I was loving the weather."

Not so much in Muncie.

"I hate the cold weather," Williams said. "I don't think it's this cold in Dallas."

Not often, anyway, because temperatures were often below freezing during Duncanville's stay. But the weather was perfect inside the Fairfield Inn, and that's where the players spent much of their time.

On the morning of its first full day in Muncie, a Sunday, Duncanville joined players from other teams for a community-service project at a Boys & Girls Club. The players cleaned up, organized and decorated the club as they were followed by cameras for CBS College Sports Network, which televised the T-Mobile Invitational games. Duncanville players were also part of a news conference Sunday, and that night, they traveled to Indianapolis to watch the Pacers play the New Orleans Hornets.

That was the busiest day of the trip, but the players still spent four hours at the hotel, napping in their rooms, surfing the Internet on laptops and calling friends on their mobile phones.

A few played NCAA Basketball 09 on an Xbox 360 in the hotel lobby, taking turns as other teammates threw on their letter jackets to walk to the McDonald's next to the hotel.

On Monday and Tuesday, Duncanville rolled up in a charter bus and entered Worthen Arena without fanfare. The Panthers played before sparse crowds of about 2,000 people and spent time after games in the arena's players lounge, which featured a buffet and more video games. Williams and Jamar Goodwin's boxing matchup on Nintendo Wii was probably more intense, and definitely more hilarious, than any of the action on the court.

Not a lot of glamour for a team that started the season No. 1 in the National Prep Poll. But the players did receive sports bags, warmup suits and organizers, and they got a chance to bond with teammates.

"It's fun just hangin' with the fellas," Sterns said. "I've got great teammates – fun teammates to be around. It's been a great experience."

That's why McNeely, who is in his 25th year at Duncanville, schedules as many trips as possible. He also gets support from the Duncanville ISD, including athletic director Kevin Ozee.

"One of our goals is to prepare these kids for college, and these events treat them like a college team," Ozee said. "And they're getting to go to places a lot of them have never seen before."

The trip to Muncie was a first for all the players. Another first for them, at least during their time at Duncanville, was losing back-to-back games.

Duncanville is 15-6, a big change from the last two seasons, when it was 74-2. But this season, Duncanville has played five of the top 25 teams in the ESPN Rise National rankings.

The Panthers, who are No. 5 in the state 5A rankings, hope playing the best will help them achieve this year's motto of "unfinished business." They decided on that after losing in a Region I semifinal last year to eventual state champion North Crowley.

"Coach always said we could've stayed in Texas and played local teams and just beat up on all the teams," Sterns said, "but he wanted us to play the best because we can be the best."

Traveling to out-of-state tournaments is nothing new to Duncanville, which in 1990 had future NBA center Greg Ostertag when it played in the Windy City Classic in Chicago. But there weren't nearly as many invitational events then as there are now, and the Panthers are getting so many offers that they can't fit them into their schedule.

The University Interscholastic League allows teams to play in three invitational tournaments per season, plus 21 more games. Three of Duncanville's invitationals count as tournaments, including the Panthers' longest in-state trip of the season to the McDonald's Texas Invitational in Pasadena. Two other invitationals are not set up as tournaments, so they only count against Duncanville's 21-game allotment.

Duncanville keeps in close contact with the UIL when scheduling, coach Phil McNeely said, to make sure it stays within the rules.