While Illinois was playing its last regular season game at Rutgers and finishing up at Madison Square Garden, Brad Underwood and staff were making the most out of the talent-rich New York Metropolitan area. They got out to Westchester to land Alan Griffin, then took a trip through Hillside, New Jersey, to watch Valdir Manuel.
But this article isn’t about Valdir Manuel, because, while scouting a big man in the Garden State, Underwood and assistant Orlando Antigua fell in love with a player from Austria named Giorgi Bezhanishvili.
Bezhanishvili has very little film, and most of it isn’t game film, but what does exist online is the 6-foot-9, 235-pound forward from The Patrick School showing off a slick handle and advanced skill set for a man of such stature.