Thursday, June 03, 2004
the coalition of the willing
Greg Hansen plays pictionary:Sometime in the 2005-06 basketball season, it's possible University of Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson will start a lineup of players from around the globe:
Nigeria's Chukwuma Okwandu at center; Mali's Mohamed Tangara at power forward; Serbia's Ivan Radenovic as a wing shooter; Puerto Rico's Jesus Verdejo at shooting guard; and Australia's Daniel Dillon at point guard.
Imagine Arizona meeting Kentucky in the '06 Final Four. UK's starting lineup that day might include 7-foot Lukasz Obrzut of Poland; shooting guard Kelenna Azubuike of Nigeria via Great Britain; and Montreal guard Thomas Sheraf.
Wow. An intriguing scenario, no? Or evidence of a longer-term trend?
This is the future of college hoops, the beginning of an overwhelming change in the way coaches like Olson operate. In his first 20 years at Arizona, Olson had three players from other parts of the globe on the roster.
By Hansen's count, nearly half of Arizona's team will be foreign-born. In a single season, Lute will nearly double his twenty-year total.
For my money, however, American high-schoolers will remain college basketball's bread and butter. If only because they're less costly to recruit and sign and more likely to matriculate and produce. For every foreign born college star, a Christian Drejer waits in the wings.
Alternative interpretation: Bob Huggins, coming soon to a Polish juvenile detention facility near you.
