I thought this was an interesting story to share while watching the St. Mary's-Portland game on ESPN2

St. Mary's has a unique recruiting pipeline. Some coaches have in-roads into the inner-city or AAU coaches, Randy Bennett has made strides elsewhere, namely the country of Australia. After discovering point guard Patty Mills a few years ago, the conference began working to get games televised internationally and for the 2nd straight year, most of their ESPN telecasts will end up being televised.

http://wccsports.cstv.com/sports/m-baskb...10aac.html

Unlike in the states where the main WCC telecasts on ESPN2 typically are Gonzaga games, this package often has the Gaels and that's no accident. St. Mary's has FIVE players from Australia on their roster. Of that group, three are freshman and another is a sophomore. All five get double digit minutes a game and two score 10+ ppg.

http://www.smcgaels.com/SportSelect.dbml...SID=101618

Yeah, we've made international recruiting a key part of our program too, although we're more eclectic than SMC is.
We currently have players from Argentina, Nigeria, Israel, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Our center who graduated last year was from Spain. Of course, we're most known for Argentinean Pepe Sanchez, which is how we got our second Argentinean player. Hopefully we add an Australian soon. Saint Louis University is already leading the A10 with two Australians on their team.

It's pretty crazy who reliant SMC is on Australians, but if it keeps working, why not.

if it works roll with it

(02-14-2010 01:23 AM)JHG722 Wrote:  Yeah, we've made international recruiting a key part of our program too, although we're more eclectic than SMC is.
We currently have players from Argentina, Nigeria, Israel, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Our center who graduated last year was from Spain. Of course, we're most known for Argentinean Pepe Sanchez, which is how we got our second Argentinean player. Hopefully we add an Australian soon. Saint Louis University is already leading the A10 with two Australians on their team.

It's pretty crazy who reliant SMC is on Australians, but if it keeps working, why not.

Who's the Israeli?

We've had a handful of international players including Neil Fingleton, who was a 7'7 English bust that transferred to Holy Cross.

WVU has had several players from outside the U.S. lately. Beilein brought in Joe Herber from Germany. And Huggs currently has a big Turk on the team, and Sudanese native David Nyarsuk coming in next year...

(02-14-2010 01:07 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(02-14-2010 01:23 AM)JHG722 Wrote:  Yeah, we've made international recruiting a key part of our program too, although we're more eclectic than SMC is.
We currently have players from Argentina, Nigeria, Israel, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Our center who graduated last year was from Spain. Of course, we're most known for Argentinean Pepe Sanchez, which is how we got our second Argentinean player. Hopefully we add an Australian soon. Saint Louis University is already leading the A10 with two Australians on their team.

It's pretty crazy who reliant SMC is on Australians, but if it keeps working, why not.

Who's the Israeli?

We've had a handful of international players including Neil Fingleton, who was a 7'7 English bust that transferred to Holy Cross.

His name is Carmel Bouchman. He had a huge growth spurt after being more of a point guard, so he's basically a 6'8 215 lb point forward. He was kind of the 'Lebron James of Israel' in terms of people recognizing his talent from a young age. He only plays a garbage minute here or there, because he needs a year to add weight/muscle and develop more of a forward's game. Georgetown and Tennessee were interested in him for a bit before he decided on Temple. Should be good in a year or two.

So he must be a freshman? Maryland had a guy they called the "Jewish Jordan" years back but he never panned out. He was Orthodox so I think there were some religious issues. Temple sounds fitting for a man of the Jewish faith.

I follow some hoops up here in the Michigan/Ohio area and Toledo has a girl by the name of Shafir who is an absolute dominant player as a soph, she's Israeli too. Tough as nails and a very good ball handler.

UofL's women volleyball coach is originally from Uzbekistan, and he's brought in a lot of players from Eastern Europe and Russia to UofL over the years.

(02-15-2010 11:41 AM)esayem Wrote:  So he must be a freshman? Maryland had a guy they called the "Jewish Jordan" years back but he never panned out. He was Orthodox so I think there were some religious issues. Temple sounds fitting for a man of the Jewish faith.

I follow some hoops up here in the Michigan/Ohio area and Toledo has a girl by the name of Shafir who is an absolute dominant player as a soph, she's Israeli too. Tough as nails and a very good ball handler.

Yeah, he's a freshman. I remember Tamir Goodman at Maryland. He was a good player. He's living in Israel now.