European Prospects

With the announcement of Hugo Invernizzi’s future destination today, you can say that the signing season of the INSEP athletes is in full swing. We take a quick look at the first decisions and what might come in the next days and weeks.

The first official decision was the signing of Ulysse Adjagba with Elan Chalon two weeks ago. The 1m84 tall guard has made some nice progress over the last years and is mainly used as a defensive stopper because of his great athletic abilities and lateral speed. Offensively, Adjagba is more of a shooting guard with a mediocre three point shot (25/102 3FGs this season) and a correct drive. He will most likely play with the Espoirs team only in the beginning while practicing with the professionals and earn some garbage minutes as he explained today in an interview with Catch-and-shoot.com. It was the feeling he had when talking to coach Beugnot and the project that they offered which encouraged him to sign with the club of NBA Draft Early Entrant Joffrey Lauvergne.

Last week, the French federation announced that Vincent Pourchot, the 2m22 tall giant, will sign with SLUC Nancy. Pourchot, who is originally from the Lorraine region where Nancy is based as well, played an “extra” year with INSEP. The French federation had decided to give Pourchot an additional season within the INSEP structure in order to help the young Center to recover from an injury and build him up physically. Pourchot played a good role with the INSEP team this season in the French 3rd division where he averaged 7.2ppg, 5.9rpg and 1.0bpg in just 18 minutes on the court. For the 1992 born player, it will be a long way to get any serious minutes on the ProA level and Pourchot will probably be stacked with the Espoirs team for at least one season.

Today, INSEP announced the signing of their team leader Hugo Invernizzi with SIG Strasbourg. The guard is probably the most pro-ready out of the team as showed the 14.2ppg and 2.3apg that he averaged this season. Invernizzi also took the choice of the home region as he was born in a village close to Strasbourg. The 1m96 tall shooter was reported to be interested in signing abroad but no team from outside of France had serious interest in him and Invernizzi also admitted that he said this more in a joking mode during a recent interview. With Vincent Collet as new head coach in Strasbourg, we could imagine that Invernizzi will see some minutes with the professional team from his first year on, even if his role might be limited.

There are still two big names out of INSEP that have to take a decision. Livio Jean-Charles is rumored to sign with ASVEL Villeurbanne but the club from the Lyon region will probably announce anything before their end of season as they are still active in the French playoffs. Jean-Charles averaged 13.0ppg and 5.4rpg with the INSEP team during the 2010/2011 exercise. The second name where a decision is still ahead is the case of William Howard. The forward was supposed to join a high-major College program next season but we heard from several sources that he struggled to pass his SAT test and will enroll in a Prep School. This has not been confirmed yet and we are still waiting for a decision.  Yannis Morin is another player that has finished his parcours with INSEP and we should be hearing something of his future in the next days as well.