WARSAW, Poland — Andy Van Vliet has no question that his brief tenure with the William & Mary basketball team aided his pro career.
The 7-foot center transferred to W&M after seeing little action with Wisconsin. He averaged 3.4 minutes as a freshman and 7.7 minutes per game in his second and last season in Madison. By contrast, Van Vliet was on the court just over 30 minutes per contest in his only season with the Tribe.
“It helped me immensely. I was kind of stuck at Wisconsin and not playing. The whole goal of going over to college in the States was to develop. William & Mary gave me a unique and amazing opportunity to play, get experience under my belt. I got to play with some amazing teammates,” he said in a recent interview in Poland. “That prepared me to go pro. To play at William & Mary was amazing.”
A native of Belgium, Van Vliet is now playing for a pro team in Sopot, a resort town near the Baltic Sea on the northern coast of Poland. He played in Israel and Lithuania before coming to Poland. Now 28, Van Vliet said the European game is more about tactics and strategy than the NBA and even some high-level Division I leagues. Games in Europe are certainly closer to the style of play of the Coastal Athletic Association than the NBA, with defensive pressure on every possession and a team concept on offense. Yes, 3-pointers are important, but do not expect to see high-flying dunks every quarter in Poland or central Europe.
“It is not about who is the most athletic,” said Van Vliet, who ended his Tribe career in 2020.
The Polish league is solid with several Power Five alums playing, including Norfolk native and former University of Texas guard Matt Coleman III.
“I think in Europe you must be way better at reading the game,” Van Vliet said. “You need to know tactical things. In college, I feel it has the strongest players, who have the fastest players, and the most athletic players and stuff like that. In Europe, it is more like technique and tactical even though you have a lot of strong players that come over from college. I would say that is one of the biggest differences — you must be smart and read the game. In officiating, I do not see a huge difference.”
Van Vliet, averaging 12.8 points and 5.8 boards per contest, had nine points and three rebounds on Saturday as Trefl Sopot ended regular-season play at home with a 98-92 loss to first-place King.
Sopot is in second place in the standings at 21-9 and will begin the playoffs Friday, with Game 2 on May 5 against No. 7 seed MKS DG.
Seeing the world
Van Vliet is one of several former William & Mary basketball players who have seen the world since leaving the Williamsburg campus.
That includes Kentucky native Omar Prewitt, who has played in the Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Poland and is now in Turkey, and Marcus Thornton, 31, the former guard who was drafted by the Boston Celtics in 2015 and had a 10-day contract three years later with Cleveland. The former CAA Player of the Year from suburban Maryland has played in Greece this season after earlier gigs in Australia, China, France, Germany and Italy.
Prewitt got a shock when he played in Poland during the 2018-19 season. He played for famed Legia in Warsaw, the Polish capital that is home to about 1.8 million people. It is sometimes called the New York City of Eastern Europe — though one downside is it gets dark around 3:30 p.m. in late December and early January.
“I had to wake up 20 minutes early for practice just to scrape snow off my car,” recalls Prewitt, 29, whose mother played at the University of Kentucky. “I did not know if I was going to make it. But then I settled in. I am from Kentucky, so I am used to basketball culture; they are crazy about it there.”
A guard, Thornton had 13 points in just 16 minutes of action on Saturday as his team won easily in Greece. He is playing for Lavrio, which is about 30 miles southeast of Athens and has an arena that holds about 1,700 fans.
Other former William & Mary players who have been overseas this season include Terry Tarpey, who ended his college career in 2016 and has been playing in France most of the time since then; Anders Nelson (Switzerland), a rookie pro; and Chicago native David Cohn, an all-CAA third team player in 2018 who has played in Israel and the United Kingdom and is with a team this season in Bochum, Germany.
He had a season-high 25 points in a game in late December and scored in double figures in nine straight contests through late March. His first pro season was in 2018-19 in Israel.
“As a rookie, the biggest adjustments for me on the court has to be the physicality of the league,” Cohn, 29, said. “First off, you’re playing 30-year-old and plus men and 17 different guys who have NBA experience in the league. The way the game is refereed is also completely different. As a point guard, also the way you operate in pick-and-roll situations is also different.”
Minnesota native Nelson was averaging 15 points per contest in late April for the Starwings of Basel, Switzerland. He averaged 11.2 points and 3.4 assists per contest for the Tribe in 2022-23.
Tarpey’s European roots run deeper than some of his American counterparts.
“Before starting my journey to play professional basketball, I lived overseas for three years, the first three years of my life,” said Tarpey, 30, who played this season for AS Monaco after an earlier gig for that same Le Mans club. “My father played professional basketball in France for 10 years, and I was born the year before he changed teams to Le Mans, where he finished his career. I do not remember much, and the language certainly didn’t stick around after we moved back to New York in 1997.”
While former Tribe star and New York native Nathan Knight has played this season in the NBA G League after earlier stops with Atlanta and Minnesota, many top American players opt to head to Europe — where they can make more money than players in the G League. The downside of that, of course, is not being affiliated with an NBA team and thus unlikely, though not unheard of, to land a spot on the roster of the top league in the world.
On the women’s side, former William & Mary standout Kaitlyn Mathieu has played in Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and several seasons in North Macedonia since her CAA days with the Tribe ended 10 years ago. Her team in North Macedonia was second in regular-season play and in the league tournament in 2023.
Maryland native Victoria Reynolds played in Kenya earlier this season after one year each in Spain and Portugal. She was an all-CAA second-team player in 2020 after playing in high school at Archbishop Spalding near Annapolis, Maryland.
Pandemic memories
Van Vliet was in Lithuania, one country in Europe where hoops may be more popular than soccer, during the pandemic lockdown and fans were eventually allowed to attend at a reduced level. The former Tribe player competed in Israel before coming to Poland. “It is tough” to watch the events going on in the Middle East, he said. “My girlfriend is Jewish, and her sister is there in Israel.”
American teammates with Van Vliet at Sopot this year played at Bradley (Austin Barnes), Creighton (Geoffrey Groselle) and Xavier (Paul Scruggs). The roster also includes one player each from Hungary and Canada as well as several Polish players. At least one Polish player must always be on the court for each team in the ORLEN league.
Thornton has teammates with roots in Nigeria, Croatia, the United States and Greece. Tarpey, this season in France, had teammates with roots in Guinea, Lithuania, Poland, Iran, France, the United States, Romania and Ghana.
Other men in the Polish league this season with Virginia ties include Stephen Brown of Manassas and Bucknell; Lovell Cabbil of Liberty University; and Joe Bryant Jr. of Lake Taylor High and Norfolk State.
According to a non-Tribe American player in Poland this season, the salary for a former Division I player varies widely in Poland, from $3,000 to $15,000 per month in a season that can last 10 months, counting preseason, from August to late May or early June. About 70 American men have played in the top Polish league this season.
After sitting out a year after transferring from Wisconsin, Van Vliet averaged 13.2 points per contest for the Tribe in 2019-20 for former coach Dane Fischer, who was let go by the school earlier this year after five seasons at the helm.
The European has lived this season in Gdansk, one of the most beautiful and historic cities in the country just a few miles from his home arena in Sopot.
Cohn, like Van Vliet, feels his time with the Tribe aided his transition to hoops in Europe.
“I owe so much to William & Mary and all the people that make it such a special place,” Cohn said. “The rigorous class work taught me many lessons, especially time management. More importantly, it taught me you get out what you put in. The faculty at W&M is second to none, in my opinion. The basketball program helped me demonstrate my abilities to the highest level, and helped me prepare mentally for the grind of being a professional basketball player. I truly cannot say enough positive things about both academics and athletics at W&M and how much it already has and will continue to help me excel moving forward in my professional career.”
Editor’s note: David Driver is a native of Harrisonburg. He is the author of “Hoop Dreams in Europe: American Basketball Players Building Careers Overseas,” which is available on Amazon.com or his website at daytondvid.com. He is the former sports editor of newspapers in Harrisonburg, Arlington and Baltimore.
