Bootsy Thornton

Bootsy Thornton
Player information
Full name	Marvis Linwood Thornton III
birthday	July 30, 1977
place of birth	Baltimore (MD), USA
size	193 cm
position	Point Guard / Shooting Guard
college	St. John's NYC
Clubs as active
1995–1997 Tallahassee CC Eagles (NJCAA) 1998–2000 St. John's Red Storm ( NCAA ) 2000–2003 Oregon Scientific Cantù 2003–2005 Montepaschi Siena 2005–2006 Winterthur FC Barcelona 2006–2007 Akasvayu Girona 2007–2008 Montepaschi Siena 2008–2011 Efes Pilsen Istanbul 2011–2012 Montepaschi Siena 2012–2013 Banco di Sardegna Sassari 2013–2014 Strasbourg IG

Marvis Linwood "Bootsy" Thornton III (born July 30, 1977 in Baltimore , Maryland ) is a retired American basketball player . After studying in his home country, Thornton began a professional career in Europe, where he initially played in Italy for five years from 2000 . After two years in Spain , further positions followed in Italy and three years in Turkey , where he became champion with Efes Istanbul in 2009. Thornton won a total of three Italian championships with Montepaschi Siena and the FIBA EuroCup 2006/07 with CB Akasvayu Girona . Thornton ended his professional career with SIG Basket from Strasbourg in 2014 at the age of 37 after playing in France for half a year .

Career

After graduating from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Baltimore, Thornton began studying at Tallahassee Community College in the city of the same name in Florida , where he played for the Eagles' college team in the National Junior Collegiate Athletic Association (NJCAA) from 1995 to 1997 . He then returned to the US Northeast and continued his studies at St. John's University in Queens , where he played from 1998 for two more years for the university team Red Storm in the then Big East Conference of the NCAA . Together with Ron Artest , among others , Thornton lost the Big East championship tournament final in 1999 against the Huskies of the University of Connecticut (UConn), who later also won the national NCAA finals tournament. Without Artest with Thornton as MVP , the Red Storm were able to win the Big East tournament against defending champion Huskies a year later. After the Red Storm in 1999 in the NCAA finals tournament against the Buckeyes of Ohio State University narrowly failed to make it into the Final Four of the prestigious final round, however, they surprisingly lost in the second round in 2000 against the Bulldogs of Gonzaga University .

After Thornton, despite his achievements in the NCAA in the NBA Draft 2000, had not been considered by any club in the highest endowed professional league NBA , he began a professional career in Europe. Here he was signed by the traditional Italian club from Cantù in Lombardy , for which he played for the following three years until 2003. In the 2000/01 season of the A1 series , the multiple European Cup winners of the 1970s and 1980s improved only slightly from penultimate to third from last place in the final table and again barely managed to stay in the league. In the following two seasons they reached the play-offs for the Italian championship as fourth and third respectively . After the semi-finals in 2002, in which they were eliminated against the first round of the main round and runner-up skipper Bologna , they were eliminated in the 2003 play-offs in the first round against the same opponent. For the following 2003/04 season Thornton was obliged by league rivals Montepaschi from Siena in Tuscany , with whom he remained undefeated after the first main round place in the play-offs and won the first championship for the eventual series champions. In the top-ranking European club competition ULEB Euroleague 2003/04 they lost the semi-finals at the Final Four tournament under dramatic circumstances with just one point after extra time against Skipper Bologna and ended up in fourth place. In the following season, the defending champion failed as the main round third in the Italian championship in the first play-off round in 2005 at Lottomatica Rome .

After Thornton was eliminated with Siena in the ULEB Euroleague 2004/05 in the intermediate round, he moved to the Spanish league ACB for Winterthur FC Barcelona for the 2005/06 season . The team from Catalonia reached the final four of this competition for the first time since winning the title in 2003 after a strong intermediate round in the ULEB Euroleague 2005/06 and the prestigious success in the quarter-final play-offs over the Spanish champions Real Madrid . Here they lost - again from Thornton's point of view - the semi-finals after leading half-time against the eventual title winner PBK CSKA Moscow and finished fourth after another defeat against the Basque team TAU Cerámica . Also in the Spanish championship, Barcelona lost the semi-final series without a win against the Basques after winning the quarter-finals against defending champions Real. In the following 2006/07 season Thornton played for league rivals Akasvayu from Girona just a few kilometers north of Barcelona. Under the also new coach Svetislav Pešić , who had coached Lottomatica Rome after winning the title with Barcelona in 2003, the Catalans won the FIBA EuroCup 2006/07, the third most important European competition and the first international title win for the club. In the 79-72 final victory over BK Azovmash Mariupol , who was led by Thornton's former Big East rival and UConn Huskies player Khalid El-Amin , Thornton was left without playing time. In the Spanish championship they eliminated Thorntons former team and local rivals FC Barcelona in the first play-off round.

For the 2007/08 season Thornton returned to Montepaschi Siena and was able to defend the championship with this team. After only three defeats in the regular season, they made only one defeat in the final series against Lottomatica Rome in the play-offs. At the Final Four of the ULEB Euroleague 2007/08 , in which Thornton was named among the ten best players in the competition in the "All-Euroleague Second Team", Siena lost in the semifinals against Maccabi Tel Aviv , but was able to defeat TAU ​​Cerámica after an extra time secure third place. For the following three seasons Thornton was signed by the Turkish record champions Efes Pilsen from Istanbul . In the 2008/09 season, the team was able to win the championship for the first time since 2005 in the Türkiye Basketbol Ligi , when defending champion and local rival Fenerbahçe Ülker beat in the final series . After Efes in the ULEB Euroleague 2008/09 was eliminated in the preliminary round, it was enough in the following two editions of this competition to move into the intermediate round of the 16 best teams, but then you could not get beyond. In the Turkish championship they were eliminated twice in the play-offs against Fenerbahçe Ülker, once in 2010 as defending champion in the final series and in 2011 in the semi-final series. For the 2011/12 season Thornton returned to Siena and was able to win the sixth championship title in a row with the club. In the quarter-final play-offs of the ULEB Euroleague 2011/12 they lost despite home rights in the first game the series against the eventual title winner Olympiacos .

For the following season 2012/13, the then 35-year-old Thornton stayed in the Italian Serie A and moved to league rivals Dinamo Banco di Sardegna from Sassari in Sardinia , whom he had defeated with Siena in the previous semi-final series of the Italian championship. In the Eurocup 2012/13 , the Sardinian team took part in an international club competition for the first time, but missed participation in the intermediate round. After the second main round place in Serie A, the team lost in the first play-off round against Thornton's former team from Cantù. In December 2013 Thornton got another contract with the French runner-up SIG Basket from Strasbourg , which, however, was eliminated from the ULEB Euroleague 2013/14 after the preliminary round and continued to play in the Eurocup. Together with David Andersen , his former teammate in the title successes in 2004 and 2012 with Montepaschi Siena, Thornton missed participation in the round of 16 in the Eurocup 2013/14 with Strasbourg and failed in the second round, among others, at the German representative Alba Berlin . In the French championship of LNB Pro A , the main round first SIG Basket lost again the final series of the championship against the new title winner Limoges CSP . After the end of the season, the 37-year-old Thornton no longer signed a new contract.

Web links

Commons : Bootsy Thornton  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• THORNTON, BOOTSY - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB ( English )
• Legabasket: Bootsy Marvis Thornton - player profile on the websites of the Serie A ( Italian )
• Thornton, Bootsy - Turkish Basketball League Player - TBL statistics on the websites of TBLStat.net (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Montepaschi Siena vs. Skipper Bologna. ULEB , April 29, 2004, accessed on January 3, 2015 (game report). 
2. ↑ Winterthur FC Barcelona vs. CSKA Moscow. ULEB , April 28, 2006, accessed January 3, 2015 (English, match report). 
3. ↑ Akasvayu Girona - Azovmash / EuroCup 2007. FIBA Europe , April 15, 2007, accessed on January 3, 2015 (English, match report). 
4. ↑ Awards 2007-08. ULEB , accessed January 3, 2015 (English, awards of the season). 
5. ↑ Montepaschi Siena vs. Maccabi Elite. ULEB , May 2, 2008, accessed January 3, 2015 (game report). 
6. ↑ Bootsy Thornton - Joueurs - Pro A. Ligue Nationale de Basket , accessed on January 3, 2015 (French, player profile).