Published: June 17, 2008 09:52 pm      

BASKETBALL: Italian national team to play exhibition in Buffalo

A dozen of the best basketball players in Italy are coming to Buffalo next week and Rich Jacob has already started some playful trash talking.

“I don’t think there’s any Italian,” the Niagara Falls native said, “who can make spaghetti sauce as good as my mother.”

Jacob also said that despite every member of the Italian national team being a “top five player at his position in his country,” a team of local all-stars coached by Jacob will be “extremely competitive” in an exhibition scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday at Medaille College’s Sullivan Center.

As chair of the sports management department at Medaille, director of European development for the American Basketball Association, and general manager of the ABA’s Buffalo Sharks franchise, Jacob said he was the principal figure in organizing the game.

Jacob said he reached out to Roosevelt Bowie, a former Syracuse University forward who had a successful career overseas, to help get a high-level national team to come to Buffalo.

The purpose of the game is to build local awareness for the Sharks, who will begin forming a roster in August and start playing in November, and international awareness of the ABA, Jacob said.

Jacob said he is still recruiting players for Monday’s game, including Jeff Parmer, a Niagara Falls High School graduate who just completed his collegiate career at Florida Atlantic University.

“I’m very interested in reaching out to Jeff,” Jacob said. “I’ve heard he’s in town, but I haven’t been able to get in touch with him.”

Karl Rainey (Riverside) and Fran Snyder Jr. (Timon-St. Jude) have already agreed to play, according to a news release.

Modie Cox, the former LaSalle High School and University at Buffalo star, said he will be in attendance on Monday, but hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll play.

General admission tickets for the game are $5. Tickets can be obtained by calling 565-7203 or sending an e-mail to info@buffalosharks.com.

The Sharks will also have a station at the Gus Macker 3-on-3 tournament being held this weekend in downtown Buffalo. Jacob will also compete in the Macker, playing on a team with Niagara Falls’ Rob Bennett and Alex Nwora, the head coach at Erie Community College.

This is Jacob’s second foray into launching an ABA franchise in Buffalo. He was the coach and general manager for the Rapids team started in 2005 and included Cox and Tim Winn, another former LaSalle star.

Amid financial troubles, Rapids owner Gary Nice sold the team to Todd Wier, who re-branded the club as the Buffalo Silverbacks. Jacob left the organization on the eve of the 2006-07 season. The Silverbacks folded after the season and Wier is now involved with the Buffalo Dragons, an expansion team in the Premier Basketball League.

Jacob said Monday’s game is part of his effort to help make sure the Sharks have more success than the Rapids and Silverbacks did.

“Myself, and our owner, Vincent Lesh, we made a commitment to both building a first-class basketball organization here in Buffalo, and getting involved in the ABA at the league level,” Jacob said.

Contact reporter Jonah Bronstein at bronsteinj@gnnewspaper.com