Former Kathleen, Rutgers hoops star Corey Sanders settles in for another season in Poland

LUBLIN, Poland – Point guard Corey Sanders dribbled the ball near the foul line then made an efficient entry pass to big man Adam Kent, who laid the ball off the backboard for a first-quarter basket here on a Sunday afternoon last month.

Sanders, the former Kathleen High star from Lakeland, gave a quick thumbs up with both hands to American teammate Kent as they played on the road in the top pro basketball league in Poland.

Being adept at non-verbal communication comes in handy for Sanders, 26, who has travelled the globe – or at least a good swath of Europe – since his three-year run ended at Rutgers. A player may not know the local language, but the international game of basketball helps ease the transition.

His overseas hoops odyssey began in the eastern European country of Georgia in 2019.

“My first time overseas was in Georgia, and it was a four-month gig,” Sanders recalls. “That was a culture shock, going over there for the first time. You are kind of excited because you are playing professionally, and you are in another country. It is part of adulting and growing up.”

Since then, he has played in Portugal, Italy, Greece, the Dominican Republic, Israel, and Lithuania. He also played in two games with the Lakeland Magic of the NBA G League in 2019-20.

“When I was growing up, my biggest thing was to play in the NBA,” says Sanders, standing near a baseline here after the game in southeast Poland.

Like many NCAA Division I stars, making it to The League is goal number one going into college at a Power Five school.

“It never really crossed my mind about going overseas until I have seen guys like Brandon Jennings go overseas,” Sanders says of California native Jennings, one of the first Americans to go straight from high school to pro hoops overseas, in Italy in 2008, before joining Milwaukee of the NBA the next year. “It started being something that was on my mind.”

Sanders, compared to Jennings, took the more conventional route to a pro career.

After playing at Kathleen and as a senior at West Oaks Academy in Orlando, the 6-foot-2 Sanders averaged at least 12.8 points, 3.2 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.3 steals per contest in each of his three seasons of college in New Jersey.

He declared for the NBA draft as an early entry in 2018 – but wasn’t chosen.

Since then, he has gone where the basketball has taken him. The style of play is different in Europe – there is more defensive pressure on every possession compared to the NBA – and so is the culture and marketing, with at least five ads on both the front and back of Sanders’ black jersey.

“The best part is that I get to do what I love every day,” he says. “I wake up and get to play basketball and I am healthy, so I am enjoying life. I get to travel to nice places.”

There are downsides, of course.

“The worst part of it is not being able to see my family, and my kids and being so far away,” the point guard said. “There is a six-hour difference with the time zone. That is where the (culture) shock comes in. I found my (life) recipes and ways to get over it.”

He has a daughter who is 7 and a son who just turned 3 and they live in Lakeland. His daughter came to visit him when he was playing in Portugal.

Sanders has learned to adapt on the court.

“Every possession over here is important because everybody knows how to take advantage of your mistakes. Most of the guys have been professionals for a long time, especially the guys who are from Europe,” Sanders says. “I feel like (the Europeans) have the ups on us. It is a harder game over here. The rules are different and there are things that go your way or not go your way.”

This is his third tenure in Poland.

He spent the 2020-21 season with Bydgoszcz, a city in north-central Poland, and he averaged 18 points in 30 games.

After two games in Lithuania last year, he joined Lancut and averaged 17.7 points and 6.8 assists per contest the rest of the way.

He had other options for this season but returned to Sokol Lancut, thanks in part to a certain comfort level.

“It is a small town, but it seems to allow me to lock in,” Sanders says. “I found a good coach.”

In the first three games this season, Sanders is averaging 12.3 points and 6.3 assists per game.

In the top Polish league, like most domestic ones in Europe, teams generally play once a week, normally on the weekend.

Sanders said his Polish coach, Marek Lukomski, speaks English. That is not always the case for some European mentors, which causes added challenges for American players who haven’t picked up the local language.

Lukomski spent a good part of the first quarter of the game last month yelling, in English, to his team “Get back! Get back!” after Sokol Lancut scored a basket at the other end.

Lancut is a town of about 18,000 people in southeast Poland, and the team made the drive of about 90 miles north to play in Lublin. A few diehard fans of the Lancut club were on hand, and as is customary in Europe, win or lose, the players for Sokol Lancut showed their appreciation after the game to its rabid followers.

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The game was back-and-forth in the first half before the hosts took a 19-point lead early in the fourth quarter. Lancut almost trimmed the lead to single digits before falling 99-83 as Sanders had 12 points and seven assists while playing 26 of 40 minutes.

The American teammates of Sanders are Kemp, who is from upstate New York and played at Marist, and Tyler Cheese, a guard from Georgia who ended his college career at Akron in 2020. Most of their teammates are Polish.

In his down time, Sanders keeps in touch with his children who live with their mother.

“I watch a lot of Netflix and ESPN,” he said.

Sanders said he feels comfortable living in Europe – and tells his friends who haven’t been overseas as much.

“I tell my guys they should come over. You can have fun for a few days. Of course, I am here for nine months out of the year,” said Sanders, who returns to Florida in the summer. “When I am overseas, I always feel comfortable. There is just something about being overseas, I just feel comfortable. (Local residents) understand I am here to play basketball. I try to stay in the good graces of everyone.”

And that approach has led to a pro career much different than the one he hoped for in the NBA.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: For Kathleen hoops star Corey Sanders, Poland has its ups and downs