Euro ball

[IWB]

Got to love Euro Ball. Heard from Chris Grimm today, he is in Budapest Hungary. A team had just flown him there to play for them. When he got there, they said, "We wanted a 3, not a 5". So he's on his way back. Nothing like a round trip flight to Hungary with an overnight layover to see the city.

[Goose85]

Any information on where and how former players are doing in the foreign leagues would be cool.

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

That is a crazy story, although I have heard some other crazy things from other players that are playing in Europe too. Seems that there are just some strange leagues out there. Curious Jim, what does Grimm and other former MU players do when they don't have a Euro team? Do they get regular day jobs? I find it hard to believe they can hold down jobs here while having to keep leaving and trying out for Euro teams at the same time... I know my employer wouldn't want me to be coming and going and such. Has to be a difficult life id assume.

[IWB]

Some do have jobs, some don't. It is rough. On the strange leagues, you don't have to look farther than Grimm. He started out the year in Macedonia, but it was quite a strange trip. Fans in that area take it a bit too serious. After winning on the road their team would get attacked, things thrown at them, things thrown at the team bus.... when on the road his wife always worried about him coming back. So they came back home. He was here for a while, got the offer and went all the way to Hungary for a job that wasn't there.

Years ago Scott Merritt - I was in The AL one day and a coach was surprised to see him, said, "What are you doing here, shouldn't you be in South America?" He explained what happened. His season was over, he came home, and some team 'hired' him to come and play in a tournament. This company put up some cash to put together a contender. Well, it worked. It worked too well. They made it to the finals but they couldn't afford to pay some of the guys to continue playing, so they sent them home.

Another time I got an e-mail from a player in the middle of the night who was in Mexico. Said it was not a good situation, and that he might have to disappear in the middle of the night and come home.

Marcus Jackson, Chris Grimm, Dan Fitzgerald, Dwight Burke..... these guys should write a book.

[ge1974]

Dan Fitzgerald is playing over Japan:

Feb 26:
The Sendai 89ers handed the visiting Takamatsu Five Arrows an 86-78 defeat, and coach Kenzo Maeda's club slipped to 2-31.

Dan Fitzgerald, a Marquette University product, paced the 89ers (17-16) with 24 points and added eight rebounds, five assists and three steals.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/sk20120226b2.html

Feb. 12

Dan Fitzgerald had 31 points and 10 rebounds for the 89ers, one-man wrecking crew Johnny Dukes added 14 points, 14 rebounds, eight assists and three steals. Takehiko "Take" Shimura and Takuya Komoda each scored eight points, with Shimura dishing out four assists. Komoda, who's seen his role expand in recent weeks, was 4-for-7 from the field.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/sk20120212b2.html

[IWB]

Fitz played in the league's all star game a few weeks ago, and was also named the league MVP at some point, where he got the greatest award ever - a free set of tires! He is becoming quite the celeb over there.

102 103 104

[lougrant]

Jerel's having a tough go in Italy. He's only averaging 9 points a game, shooting just 36.7% (26% on 3s) from the floor and averaging 2.3 assists and 2.3 TOs.

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

Jerel seems to be bouncing back and forth from the D-League and Europe. I know he had the little drug incident a few years back, but he was tearing up the D-league at one point and I know many thought he would land a 10 day contract some where... really too bad. Is Dominic doing anything anywhere? I really think he would have made it to the league if it weren't for injuries.

[IWB]

Dominic played earlier in the year in Greece, and in 7 games in the Eurocup he averaged just under 15 PPG. Now he is in Serbia playing for Partizan and led his team to a championship.

GE had linked in a story on him from the newspaper, Serbia... http://www.ballineurope.com/european-basketball/euroleague/dominic-james-partizan-belgrade-marquette-3582/

[ge1974]

More Dominic James. He led his Partizan team to victory over the weekend with 28 points.

http://hoopsuniverse.net/dominic-james-led-partizan-mts-to-another-one-win/