06-02-2014, 05:29 PM
|
#4444
|
Rabbi Goldmann
Join Date: Nov 2012
Casino cash: $5450159
|
Small world, big pot: Kansas basketball is becoming an international brand
Sean Keeler Fox Sports
Last year's Jayhawks had two, both at center stage: Andrew Wiggins, a native of Canada, and Joel Embiid, who hails from the African nation of Cameroon. The two are widely expected to be among the top three picks in next month's NBA Draft.
But the Jayhawks kept the international flavor going last week when they announced the signing of Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, a 16-year-old, 6-foot-8 combo guard from Cherkasy, Ukraine, who has already been likened to a young Dirk Nowitzki.
Over a span of two winters, the hearts and minds of the 785 area code, the bread basket of basketball, the most old-fashioned American of old-fashioned American college towns, could be won over by a Canadian, a Cameroonian and a Ukrainian.
Welcome to the United Nations of Mass Street. Rock Chalk, Bangkok.
Bluebloods are moving over, too. Kansas, like its peer programs in Chapel Hill and Durham and Bloomington and Lexington, can pretty much get first dibs -- and no worse than second -- on any domestic talent it really, really wants. Even Townsend admitted he probably wouldn't have given a second look to a 16-year-old Ukrainian a decade earlier.
http://msn.foxsports.com/kansas-city...l-brand-053014
|
Posts: 87,025
|
|