Foreign legion: BYU-Utah rosters loaded with foreigners

Ben Melmeth, who came to Judge Memorial as an exchange student from Australia, played for two years at the U., much of the time as a starter, before heading back Down Under to play professionally.

In 1996, Hanno Mottola came to Utah and had a solid four-year career, playing as one of the starters on the 1997-98 Ute Final Four team.

Bogut began the latest surge of foreign players for the Utes, and he simply turned into the college player of the year in 2004-05.

Ute coach Ray Giacoletti credits assistant Mike Score for scouring the world to find good players and has used his own connections to try to find some "diamonds in the rough."

"We've just tried to find people — good players and students — wherever they might be in the world," said Giacoletti. "Utah doesn't have 20 (collegiate) players it produces every year, so we have to try to find them in a little larger area."

As Giacoletti says, "Everyone can go out and tell you (Ohio State's) Greg Oden is a great player. We've just tried to broaden the search a bit. There's a little less competition for foreign players."

Giacoletti inherited Bogut, although he had to make a trip to Australia to make sure he came back for his sophomore year. Then he got Luke Nevill through his connections with the Australia Institute of Sport.

He asked AIS if there were any other top players and was told about Nevill, who unbeknownst to Giacoletti had been recruited by the previous Ute coaching staff. However, they didn't even inform Giacoletti they were recruiting Nevill, and Giacoletti had to re-recruit him to come to Utah after Nevill figured the Utes weren't interested anymore.

There's no blueprint for recruiting foreign players, according to Giacoletti.

"Each one's a little bit different," he said.

He said a European scout for the Toronto Raptors helped the Utes find Drca. A scout for the Atlanta Hawks put the Utes onto Tillie. Score found Radojevic in Serbia as well as 2007-08 signee Nemanja Calasan, and the Utes' connection with the Australian Institute of Sport helped corral Weigh.

Giacoletti said many factors go into getting foreign players. He said they need to know English and be good enough students to pass tests to get into the university.

The Utes may never produce another Bogut, but Giacoletti feels he has some foreign players who will make a definite impact on the Ute program.

"We have a number of guys who have a chance to be pretty darn good before it's all said and done."

Top foreign players

UTAH

Andrew Bogut, 2003-05, Australia

Hanno Mottola, 1996-2000, Finland

Luke Nevill, 2005-current, Australia

BYU

Kresimir Cosic, 1970-73, Yugoslavia

Kari Liimo, 1966-69, Finland

Rafael Ararujo, 2002-04, Brazil

Timo Saarelainen, 1981-85, Finland

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