Benjamin Eze

Ben Eze
Player information
Full name	Benjamin Ndubuisi Eze
birthday	February 8, 1981
place of birth	Lagos, Nigeria
size	208 cm
position	Center / Power Forward
college	JuCo Southern Idaho
Club information
society	Banco di Sardegna Sassari
league	Lega Basket Serie A
Jersey number	24
Clubs as active
1998 Awtodor Saratow 1999–2001 Southern Idaho Eagles (NJCAA) 2001 KD Slovan 2001–2004 Viola Reggio Calabria 2004–2010 Montepaschi Siena 2010–2011 BK Chimki 2011–2012 Armani Jeans Milan 2012–2013 Montepaschi Siena Since 2014 Banco di Sardegna Sassari00000 00000 0
National team
2001-2005	Nigeria

Benjamin Ndubuisi Eze (born February 8, 1981 in Lagos , Nigeria ) is a Nigerian - Italian basketball player . Eze began a career as a professional player in Italy in 2001 after studying in the United States . In 2005 the Nigerian international received Italian citizenship and won a total of five Italian championships and three titles in the “Coppa Italia” cup competition with Montepaschi Siena . Eze has been playing for the Italian cup winner Dinamo Basket Sassari since February 2014.

Career

Eze was brought to Russia as a 17-year-old talent , where he played for Awtodor from Saratov in the then top division of the Super League . Eze then decided to accept the offer of a place at the University of Louisville , where he would have played for the Cardinals college team in the NCAA . The NCAA ultimately refused him admission, as the rules officially only students in the sense of amateurs are entitled to play in the NCAA, and the NCAA evaluated his use in the professional Russian league as a professional practice. Eze then began in 1999 to study at the College of Southern Idaho , where he played for the high school Eagles in the National Junior Collegiate Athletic Association (NJCAA). The Eagles basketball team is one of the most successful teams in the NJCAA and last won the national championship before Eze in 1987, but was unable to celebrate any further title successes in Eze's time from 1999 to 2001. After the end of his two years at junior college, Eze did not go back to the University of Louisville, for which he would now have been eligible to play, but signed up directly for the entry draft of the most highly endowed professional league NBA . With that he finally forfeited the opportunity to play again in the NCAA, and after he was not selected by any NBA club in the 2001 NBA draft , he began a career as a professional player.

At the beginning of the 2001/02 season Eze was first in the squad of the Slovenian club KD Slovan from Ljubljana . After just one game, however, he moved to Italy to Viola from Reggio Calabria in the Lega Basket Serie A . After the fourth from last place in the 2001/02 season, the club reached the table ninth in the 2002/03 season on the pre- play-offs, the play-off quarter-finals for the Italian championship, in which one in five games the defending champion and main round first Benetton Treviso was inferior. After the play-off preliminary round was abolished in the 2003/04 season, Viola missed the final round to win the title with Eze as ninth in the table. Then Eze moved as the best average shot blocker in the league to master Montepaschi from Siena , who had won the title for the first time. In the highest-ranking European club competition ULEB Euroleague 2004/05 , after two Final Four participations , they were eliminated in the intermediate round of the 16 best teams. After Eze had received his Italian passport, he was used again at the end of the season in national championship games, but defending champion Siena lost third in the main round in the first play-off round against Lottomatica Rome . At the Africa Cup of Nations 2005 , the former junior international Eze was once again in the squad of the Nigerian men's national team , which qualified for the 2006 World Cup by winning the bronze medal . After Siena was eliminated in the ULEB Euroleague 2005/06 after the preliminary round, they lost in the first play-off round again as third in the main round against Lottomatica Rome.

In the 2006/07 season you could confidently complete the main round of Serie A first after the commitment of Terrell McIntyre, among others, after only four defeats. After deducting points for defending champion Benetton Treviso, who missed the final round, and overcoming the "Rome complex" when they won the following three games after the only play-off defeat at the beginning of the semi-final series, Siena won the championship for the second time . So you returned to the ULEB Euroleague 2007/08 , in which you finished third in the Final Four tournament. In the Italian championship they defended the title after only three defeats in the regular season and one in the final series. In the following season 2008/09 they won after winning the title in the national cup competition "Coppa Italia" for the first time the double with only one defeat in the championship. After two defeats in the championship, Siena won the double again in 2010, but missed participation in the quarter-final play-offs by one basket point in the ULEB Euroleague 2009/10 due to the poorer direct comparison with Real Madrid . For the 2010/11 season, Eze first moved to the Russian runner-up from Khimki in Moscow Oblast . However, Chimki was eliminated after the preliminary round of the ULEB Euroleague 2010/11 and Eze returned to Italy, where he joined the record champions Olimpia Armani Milan, who were also eliminated after the preliminary round. In the national championship they lost third in the play-off semi-final series against Bennet Cantù . In the following season 2011/12 you could improve slightly, because in the ULEB Euroleague 2011/12 it was enough for Milan to participate in the intermediate round of the 16 best teams and in the championship they moved into the final series. But against the defending champion and Eze's former team from Siena they recorded only one win in five games of the final series.

For the 2012/13 season Eze returned to the champions from Siena. At the beginning of the season, Eze had to undergo a surgical operation on the meniscus , which is why the club brought the Austrian Benjamin Ortner back to Italy from the financially struggling German first division club LTi Gießen 46ers . In the ULEB Euroleague 2012/13 , the team missed participation in the quarter-final play-offs. After Siena's ailing main sponsor had significantly reduced its financial resources, serial champion Siena also had to face increased competition in the league and only reached the play-offs in fifth, in which they were in the first round in the new edition of the previous year's final series against Milan was able to enforce seven games again. After another seven games in the semifinals against the main round first Cimberio Varese , it was enough in the final series against Rome to the seventh title win in a row and the defense of the double for the club. Then the team broke up after further cuts in the budget and even Eze, who had recently repeatedly needed injury breaks, initially did not sign a new contract. In February 2014 Eze got a new job when he signed a contract with the new cup winner Dinamo Basket from Sassari in Sardinia . With the Sardinians, however, he lost the play-off semi-final series against the new title winner from Milan.

Web links

Commons : Benjamin Eze  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Legabasket: Benjamin Eze - player profile on the websites of the Serie A ( Italian )
• EZE, BENJAMIN - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB (English)
• archive.fiba.com: Players - Ndubuisi Benjamin EZE (NGR) - Overview of participation in FIBA tournaments (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Milano Ingaggia Eze, 4 scudetti con Siena. Gazzetta dello Sport , January 22, 2011, accessed July 26, 2014 (Italian). 
2. ^ NBA Draft 2001: Benjamin Eze. National Basketball Association , 2001, accessed July 26, 2014 . 
3. ↑ Nigeria / 2005 FIBA ​​Africa Championship for Men. FIBA , accessed on July 26, 2014 (English, roster in FIBA ​​archive). 
4. ↑ Siena, Ben Eze operato al menisco. (No longer available online.) Tuttosport , October 20, 2012, archived from the original on August 9, 2014 ; Retrieved July 26, 2014 (Italian). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Giuseppe Nigro: Basket: Sassari, senti Eze: "Milano attenta, voglio lo scudetto". Gazzetta dello Sport , March 14, 2014, accessed July 26, 2014 (Italian).