MORGANTOWN — WVU’s men’s basketball roster will be one great melting pot this season.
The Mountaineers enter their first season under head coach Josh Eilert with more internationally-born players than any other men’s hoops team in school history.
And it’s created an interesting atmosphere.
“I’m used to it, because I’m international myself,” said forward Jesse Edwards, a native of Amsterdam, Netherlands. “For the American guys, it might be something new, seeing all these dudes with different ideas and accents.
“Yeah, it’s fun, because everybody has different cultures, different backgrounds. Everybody has a different background and you have to come together. It’s gelling well.”
Of the 12 players on the roster, five were born internationally, some as far away as Estonia, located across the Baltic Sea from Finland.
“When my sister came to visit me, she said it felt like flying around half the world,” said WVU guard Kerr Kriisa, a native of Estonia. “When you look at the map, she basically did.”
While forward Akok Akok grew up in New Hampshire, he was born in Egypt, as was walk-on teammate Ali Ragab.
Freshman forward Ofri Naveh is from Israel and he played for his country in the FIBA under-18 European Championships this summer prior to enrolling at WVU.
Akok, Edwards and Kriisa all transferred from other Division I schools, so no international scouting was needed.
Not so for Naveh, who WVU assistant coach Da’Sean Butler first heard about through his contacts in Israel he made while playing there professionally.
“People Da’Sean got to know reached out,” Eilert said. “We started looking at his film and he was very intriguing. I wish he had another 30 pounds of size to him when he showed up, but we’ll get there. We’re excited to have him.”
For many of the international players, soccer was their first love.
“It’s easier to kick the ball with your legs than trying to shoot it in the hoop,” is the way Kriisa explained it.
Yet they all eventually gravitated towards basketball. Edwards said he didn’t play the game until he was 15, after watching his older brothers play.
He, too, started out in soccer and also high-jumped on his track team. So, how was his first basketball experience?
“I was all right. I wasn’t too bad,” Edwards said. “I just didn’t have a lot of skill, so I relied on my athleticism to get on the boards or do what the coach told me to do.”
The different backgrounds lead to an exchange of cultures among the WVU players, and eventually the conversations turn to food.
This isn’t exactly a hot dogs and cheeseburgers group on the WVU roster.
“My dad is from London, so he’s all about tea and cookies,” Edwards said. “I got everything except his (British) accent. I love tea and cookies. I got his tastes. I love pudding and all of that weird stuff.”
Kriisa said he misses his grandmother’s soup the most.
“Nothing beats that,” he said. “Soup, and she makes the best meatballs, too, with some great potatoes.”
In terms of cuisine, it was maybe Kriisa who made the biggest adjustment when first coming to the United States.
He played the last three seasons at Arizona, which opened up a whole other culinary world to him.
“I had never eaten Mexican food until I got to Tucson, and the next thing you know, all you had to eat was Mexican food,” Kriisa said. “I was in the bathroom pretty often; my stomach couldn’t take it. I had a good three years in Tucson, but I’m taking a break from Mexican food.”
