Credit to Ella Brockaway for re-tweeting this. Looks like Pat Spencer is playing professionally in Germany.
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Pat Spencer
- Thread starter Cat Fan in Buckeye Land
- Start date
Congrats to PS. I thought he’d have to start his international game at a lower level than the Germany top league. Really happy for him
I thought there was a pro lacrosse league. It must be really pathetic if the #1 player in the country at one point doesn't join in.
Is it different than Charlie Ward playing in the NBA rather than the NFL? Spencer can almost certainly make better money as a professional basketball player.
Heck of a lot less abuse to his body as well. Charlie and Pat made good choices......
My son lasted 3 years in the MLL. He was one of the highest paid players at the time, at about $500/game. Endorsements were a bigger source of income. The MLL was brutally physical. His back still has scars from getting slashed by 6' D poles. The lack of practice and long bus rides sapped his love of playing
The MLL merged with the better funded upstart PLL . Salaries are much higher now but attendance still has not kept pace of the rising popularity of the sport. The attendance at the Final Four peaked about 15 years ago with about 50,000 fans attending a weekend festival. Greater TV exposure evidently hurt attendance of the NCAA tournament but much like hockey , following the "ball" takes experienced camera crews and now with ESPN's limited budget and lack of onsite commentators , even the TV experience is not as good as it has been
Lacrosse combines all the aspects of sport that Americans like-contact, scoring, eye to hand coordination, and athleticism but has not flourished professionally.
The fact that he made Germany's top league after one year of college basketball is absolutely incredible. You have to wonder if he had given up lacrosse sooner, where would he be ...
It's a great sport. I grew up in LAX country in upstate NY, but never really played. Both my kids are playing though and love it.
A cursory look at a few lacrosse rosters (men & women) show a lot of names, it seems. How many scholarships are allowable to a team? (I assume the limit requires most players to be on partial scholarships at best.)
Lacrosse is allowed 12.6 scholarships, so full scholarships are extremely rare
NCAA allow 12.6 scholarships for about a 40 man squad
Yeah, lacrosse combines some of the elements of hockey and soccer with more scoring. I enjoy watching it. It always seems as if it should be more popular in the U.S., but it has been relatively slow to spread from its hotbed in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.
Pardon and Bayreuth beat Spenser and Hamburg tonight. Strong game by Derek- 27 mins, 11 puts., 13 rebounds. Spenser only played 10 mins and had 3 points.
Women’s is 12.0 I believe. Men’s 12.6.
Split amongst many players. Not sure what the total roster size limits are.
So can NU or any school giving athletic scholarships, I would think.
Absolutely...look no further than our football PWO program. The majority (if not all PWO’s) receive some sort of need based financial aid.
Went through every stat sheet of games Spencer played in. It did not look good.
Starting your international career in the Germany D1 is not the best strategy for players that are not clear stars. Most (good) agents will tell their clients this. And most clients won't listen.
The path for a guy like Spencer is more playing in Belgium/Netherlands/Kosovo/Portugal or something like that. Stack up some numbers and experience playing against grown ass men. And, hopefully, move on to more demanding and significantly better paying leagues.
While you give up money to start off with, the paying is actually pitiful and equates to playing for free in the minors, it is often the way to avoid playing for a year or two and see your career shut down because you could never show decent numbers.
Starting your international career in the Germany D1 is not the best strategy for players that are not clear stars. Most (good) agents will tell their clients this. And most clients won't listen.
The path for a guy like Spencer is more playing in Belgium/Netherlands/Kosovo/Portugal or something like that. Stack up some numbers and experience playing against grown ass men. And, hopefully, move on to more demanding and significantly better paying leagues.
While you give up money to start off with, the paying is actually pitiful and equates to playing for free in the minors, it is often the way to avoid playing for a year or two and see your career shut down because you could never show decent numbers.
I could not find player stats. Did not look that hard, probably can be found. So I looked at the box score of the Hamburg team. You can find them here:
Veolia Towers Hamburg basketball, News, Roster, Rumors, Stats, Awards, Transactions, Details-eurobasket
Veolia Towers Hamburg basketball, scores, news, schedule, roster, players, stats, rumors, details and more on eurobasket.com
First game PS plays in was on April 23. Only 10 games played
His minutes were low in a few games but he started close to half of them. His shooting percentage was pretty good. Given that it's his second year of competitive hoops, his performance was decent.
UPDATED WITH TOTAL STATS OVER 8 GAMES:
19-33 (2pt FG%)
3-10 (3pt FG%)
9-12 (FT %)
24 rebounds (3.0/gm)
9 assists (1.1/gm)
56 points (7.0/gm)
UPDATED WITH TOTAL STATS OVER 8 GAMES:
19-33 (2pt FG%)
3-10 (3pt FG%)
9-12 (FT %)
24 rebounds (3.0/gm)
9 assists (1.1/gm)
56 points (7.0/gm)
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You are seeing it from a perspective of a player in a stable system. In the NCAA, in the NBA. Or, in Europe, were he German the numbers would look ok. Evolution and all.
But he counts as a foreign player, which have limited slots in teams in different countries. Who are chosen, not after tons of due diligence, film, etc, but rather from a step above a catalog of many many players. Where seeing numbers like Spencer posted does not get many people excited about looking further and look up some film. And, perhaps most importantly, are expected to score decently. The American player in a Euro team is expected to score. There’s no bringing a dude in to be a glue guy, defensive stopper or something like that.
The game of playing professional ball abroad requires putting up numbers. And not numbers as a second year playing organized ball. Make no mistake, this is not a start that helps him. The saving grace is only having played 10 games.
I like and admire the heck out of Spencer. Like a lot here do. But saying his numbers were decent is being kind. Very kind.
Bottom line, he should have never gone to Germany D1 to kick this off. I encourage you to look up what happened to Scottie Lindsey in his first Euro adventure. When he was a lot more mature than Spencer.
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