Despite the Drejer incident there's still a huge number of players from overseas that are going to enroll at US colleges next fall. I tried to compile a list of most important of them - let me know if I forgot one. Who do you think will have the biggest impact? Name (Country) - Ht, Wt - School Danko Barisic (Croatia) - 7'0, 270 - Weber State Vitor Boccardo (Brazil) - 6'9, 215 - Loyola-Marymount Aaron Bruce (Australia) - 6'2, 190 - Baylor Felix Czerny (Germany) - 6'3, 180 - San Francisco Mamadou Diene (Senegal) - 7'1, 210 - Baylor Mouhamet Faye (Senegal) - 6'7, 190 - Pepperdine Sam Harris (Australia) - 7'3, 260 - Old Dominion
That's a great list. To be honest, I don't know one of those players. I'll have to look them up. However, there is a lot of buzz about this Kansas recruit named Sasha Kaun. He's supposidely from Russia (or somewhere in Eastern Europe). He's 6-11 and roughly 250 lbs.; Rivals.Com ranks him as the #6 center recruit in the nation. He may have a long road ahead of him backing up Padgett, but we can't predict how that will turn out. One of them may replace Graves at power forward. Sasha Kaun
Well, Sasha Kaun is already playing in the States, at this prep school. I did not include foreign players who are already playing in the States, like Mohamed Tangara or Churchill Odia. This list about the players who are still overseas. If you don't know any of these players, I might give you a brief comment on players I know. Aaron Bruce spent last summer playing for the Australian junior national team in the 2003 FIBA Junior World Championships in Greece, alongside Andrew Bogut (Utah) and Damian Martin (Loyola-Marymount). These three actually were the best of the team that won the title. Bruce scored 25 points against the Team US, by the way. Mouhamet Faye and Mamadou Diene are both playing on a basketball school in Dakar, Senegal. Southern Idaho assistant coach Babacar Sy runs the school. Both played at the Africa 100 camp, where another student of Sy's basketball school, Samba Gueye, stood out and draw major attention of NBA scouts. Vitor Boccardo, I just saw, is already playing in the States at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida. I don't think he's the best player of his age group, since there's also a Tiago Splitter playing in Spain, but he's probably good. Felix Czerny played second division in Germany. He was also a member of the 2002 European junior championship team. He wasn't outstanding, but solid.
Another recruit from abroad signed a national letter of intent. Vincent Polakovic, a 6-foot-8, 220-pound forward from Bratislava, Slovakia. Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier
