DaytonDailyNews.com

It isn't surprising that Miami University's Eric and Tim Pollitz are making a trip together next month to Taiwan. The twins will play on an Athletes in Action basketball team in the Jones Cup Tournament while also spreading the word of Christianity.

The Pollitzes were raised together in Ottawa, Ohio, and play together for the RedHawks' men's basketball team. Tim, a 6 foot, 6 inch senior forward, was the Mid-American Conference Tournament and team MVP last season and Eric, a 6-6 junior guard, was named Miami's most improved player.

They even communicate as one.

More than a few times while discussing the upcoming trip, one twin would start to answer and the other would take over in mid-sentence and finish the thought. Or one twin would begin talking, the other would interject a few words into the middle of a sentence and then the first twin would finish. They did it without thinking, without pausing.

Both spoke of how they probably would not have been ready for, as Tim called it, "a leap of faith" in a foreign land prior to their arrival in Oxford.

"We didn't grow (spiritually) until the last couple of years in college," Tim said.

"Our dad is a pastor in our hometown," Eric pointed out. "And growing up around the church and my dad," Tim said, "I personally feel like we went through the motions. We didn't invest in it or even understand it that much."

Eric and Tim said they plan to talk about their faith in personal terms, relying heavily upon their recent college experiences.

Those experiences won't be limited to the good times, like Tim scoring 21 points against the third-seeded Oregon Ducks in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, or Eric's knack of coming up with big plays off the bench, such as his blocked shot with 25 seconds remaining to help preserve Miami's 65-63 win over Kent State on Jan. 7.

"I thought I was invincible. Then came the knee injury," said Tim, who played the entire season with a bad knee. "I thank God for that. He is telling me there are more important things than basketball, and (the injury) made me lean on him. That's the only thing that produces character. By trials. If people just coasted through life, you'd never know about their character."

"After my freshman year," Eric said, "I had gotten into some trouble or whatever (which resulted in a brief suspension from the RedHawks) and I had to re-think the values of my life."

They're a bit nervous about going to Taiwan, which is located off the coast of mainland China.

Taiwan's population of about 27 million people includes slightly less than 1 million Protestants and Roman Catholics. It's a part of the world where Christianity, in some cases, is not embraced with open arms by various governments.

"In some places," Tim said, "if you hold up a Bible, you get persecuted."

Eric and Tim aren't prepared to shove their beliefs down the throats of the host country's population.

"There will be a lot of 1-on-1 sessions," Tim said. "I'll ask, 'What are your beliefs?' It's listening to them first, and giving our perspective on things. It shouldn't be an argument. Then it's going nowhere."

"A lot of us take for granted questions like 'Why are we here on earth?' " said Eric, who has admittedly thought long and hard about such things. "We started to see the big picture and to think about the reasons we're actually here, about what is our purpose in life."

Of course, there is also a practical side to a journey to the other side of the world in which Eric and Tim and their teammates will face teams from Taiwan, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Japan, Korea, Kazakhstan and the Philippines.

"It'll get us prepared physically and mentally for the next season," Tim said. "We're going against some pretty good teams and players."

The U.S. is the defending Jones Cup champion. The team will be coached by Mike Jarvis, who guided George Washington to the NCAA Sweet 16 in 1993 and St. John's to the NCAA Elite Eight in 1999. Other members of the team include West Virginia's Darris Nichols and Alex Ruoff, Marshall's Tyler Wilkerson and Michigan's Zack Gibson.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197 or pconrad@coxohio.com.