HANGZHOU, China — As part of a day-long experience at the Alibaba Group campus in Hangzhou, China, on Tuesday, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott, Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai and Pac-12 legend Bill Walton met with the media for a roundtable discussion.

With the upcoming Washington-Texas men’s basketball regular-season opener in Shanghai on Saturday morning, which airs Friday at 7 p.m. PT on ESPN, much of the roundtable talk focused on the differences in the collegiate models between China and the United States.

“One of the most important things about NCAA basketball and NCAA sports in general, is that sports is part of education,” said Tsai, who played lacrosse at Yale. “The idea of a student-athlete, that’s a combined person. So, you don’t separate sport from your academics, because you learn so many values from sports — the value of teamwork, discipline and perseverance.”

[Related: Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott meets with Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma]

As it stands now, elite Chinese athletes are usually identified at a young age and put on a separate educational track than other students. But through its globalization initiative, which has staged several basketball events in China over the past few years, the Pac-12 is trying to introduce the idea of student-athlete in areas where it is uncommon.

“How do you take these really well-known institutions and use the most popular sport in China as a vehicle to talk about what’s unique about the Pac-12 schools and really the U.S. higher education system in general?” Scott said. “You can have the highest level of educational opportunity with the best, most prestigious universities on one hand, and still pursue your dreams — athletically, culturally, artistically — the idea of this holistic education.”

Walton said he could already envision the fruits of the Pac-12’s globalization efforts while walking around the buzzing Alibaba campus on Tuesday.

“We were watching practices upstairs and the fans, all the employees from Alibaba were lining up against the glass,” Walton said. “Very soon, those guys are going to start playing basketball. Once you start playing, you realize how fun this is and how it’s going to change your life. The lessons of empowerment that Alibaba is about, that the Pac-12 is about, that sports are all about — it all comes together perfectly.”