Prep Profile - Lee Academy
In a day and age where there is a bigger international presence in prep school basketball than ever before, Lee Academy serves as New England’s resident international program.
Located nearly 200 miles northeast of Portland (Maine), the trip to Lee can sometimes feel like a trip to another country, but the drive is always well worth it to see the talent that head coach Igor Vrzina assembles on an annual basis.
This year’s team is not unlike those we’ve seen in recent years, the players on the roster come from a variety of different countries and speak a variety of different languages. Serbia, Poland, Ukraine, Lebanon, Italy, Montenegro, Taiwan and Turkey are all represented. The one constant is Vrzina, who can communicate with all the players on the team and in many cases went abroad himself to discover them.
The other constant is that players improve during their time at Lee. Development is a key part of any prep experience but it can be even more complicated with international players as they have to adjust to what is, in many ways, a totally different game than what they are accustomed to.
That adjustment process is one that Vrzina has proven very good at helping players through. The proof lies in the strides that players make between the time the year begins in the fall and when it finishes in the spring, or especially if players spend more than one year at Lee.
Dusan Majstorovic is a perfect example. He arrived at Lee two years ago and while he was obviously skilled and smart, he struggled to keep up with the pace of the game and didn’t land any D1 offers as a result. He returned last year as a post-graduate, was noticeably more athletic and active, and is now beginning his freshman season in the Atlantic 10 at LaSalle.
This year’s roster has similar examples in both Nedeljko Prijovic and Sergio El Darwich, both of whom returned as post-grads after joining the team as seniors last year.
Prijovic’s strides have been especially noteworthy. While he was obviously talented a year ago, he too struggled with the transition to the American game, and those struggles impacted his energy and attitude. This year, he’s flying up and down the court like few others, using his length and passing ability to create all kinds of mismatch problems and as a result is now the team’s first D1 pledge of the year after his recent commitment to Texas State.
While El Darwich played a bigger role last year, he too figures to take on more responsibility this year and see his recruitment grow as a result as a big and versatile guard who is highly skilled with great poise in his game.
New to the team’s core are a trio of big men who will all need to make immediate contributions – Vitaliy Shibel, Stefan Radosavljevic and Marcel Kliniewski. Shibel already owns offers from Arizona State and Tulsa among others and figures to be the most heavily recruited player on this year’s roster while Radosavljevic and Kliniewski, who are 6-foot-10 and 7-foot-1 respectively, are both obviously talented D1 prospects who already hold offers but also players that will inevitably benefit from the year under Vrzina’s tutelage.
With the 6-foot-7 Prijovic capable of playing on the wing and the 6-foot-4 El Darwich capable of playing the point, size will obviously be a major asset of this year’s team, yet another player who could prove to be an important piece off the bench is actually an undersized big man in 6-foot-6 Gordan Glomazic. Built like a brick wall, Glomazic isn’t an explosive athlete but he’s powerful and very crafty. He’ll drain rainbow threes with a bit of an unorthodox release and also score over top of bigger players on the post.
The other option at point guard is actually a true local product in Springfield native Darrick Boyd. Coming off a successful high school career in the MIAA, Boys looks ready to prove himself against a higher level of competition here and has a chance to fill the type of role once held by Aaron Calixte as a defender and creator.
Lewis Wang, a back-up point guard who played his way up from the school’s high school team, could see minutes as his back-up while Atakan Sahinkaya and Mert Ilhan are two notable players who will return next season.
While there’s a near endless supply of international products in the gym, those should be the ones that battle for the majority of the minutes in the team’s rotation, and that’s a group that should again be competitive with some of the best programs in the NEPSAC.
That process starts in just a few weeks as Lee takes on Northfield Mount Hermon on the opening night of the National Prep Showcase at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven.
Mert Ilhan
Lewis Wang