Iolani's Low MVP of Italian tournament
Advertiser Staff
The precocious basketball talents of Iolani School's Derrick Low captured Italy and Lithuania last week.
St. Louis, Mo., may be next.
Low, who in February became the first freshman chosen Interscholastic League of Honolulu Player of the Year, was selected as Most Valuable Player of an international tournament in Vercelli, Italy. Low averaged 27 points per game and led Iolani to an 89-78 victory over the Lithuanian Junior National Team.
"The European fans and coaches fell in love with him," Iolani coach Mark Mugiishi said. "European players are trained to play in a very mechanical way. They were intrigued to watch Derrick use much more imagination."
The international rules, favoring players who excel in the open floor, with a 24-second clock and 40-minute halves, helped Low demonstrate his talent, Mugiishi said.
Iolani, with 11 players ranging in age from 15 (Low) to 18, finished second in the tournament to a team of 20- and 21-year-olds from Piemonte, Italy. "Their big men were grown men," Mugiishi said, while Iolani's biggest, 6-foot-6 all-state player Bobby Nash, did not make the trip.
Mugiishi said the players "saw the Coliseum and the Eiffel Tower, but the best thing was that they stayed in homes during the tournament and made strong bonds with the Italian kids and families." The farewells were very tearful, he said.
Bobby Webster, who also made the all-tournament team and led the tournament in three-point baskets, agreed. "We got to experience the food and the whole Italian way of life, morning to night. It's so different from Hawai'i," he said.
Low left the 27-person travelling party when it returned through New York and went separately to St. Louis, Mo., where he is participating in the Nike Freshman-Sophomore Hoop Jamboree camp, which started yesterday. He was one of the first of 100 players chosen by Nike for the national showcase camp.
Mugiishi said "lots of fund-raisers" reduced the cost per player for the two-week trip to about $500. "It was a lot of work, but I would do it again. It's going to change some people's lives," said Mugiishi, who used his vacation time as a cancer surgeon to take his team to Italy. He said it was the first trip to Europe for everyone in the Iolani party.
