Jeff Nordgaard

Jeff Nordgaard
Player information
Full name	Jeffrey Wallace Nordgaard
birthday	23rd February 1973
place of birth	Dawson (MN), USA
size	200 cm
position	Small forward
college	Wisconsin (Green Bay)
NBA draft	1996 , 53. Pick Milwaukee Bucks
Clubs as active
1992–1996 UW-GB Phoenix ( NCAA ) 1996–1997 CB Bilbao Patronato 1997 Milwaukee Bucks 1997–1998 Fort Wayne Fury ( CBA ) → 1998 Milwaukee Bucks 1998–1999 Viola Reggio Calabria 1999–2000 Besançon BCD 2000 Indiana Legends ( ABA ) 2001 Élan Chalon 2001–2003 Anwil Włocławek 2003–2004 Polonia Warsaw 2004 Sedima Roseto 2004–2005 Olympiacos 2005 Polonia Warsaw 2005–2007 Prokom Trefl Sopot 2007–2009 AZS Koszalin 00000 000 00000 00000 00000 00000
National team
2004-2006	Poland

Jeffrey Wallace Nordgaard (born February 23, 1973 in Dawson , Minnesota ) is a former American - Polish basketball player . After studying in his native country, he played as a professional player in Spain before he returned to Minnesota after a year and played for the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA . Here, however, he could not prevail and after further assignments in the Minor League CBA went back to Europe, where he played in Italy and France . In 2001 he went to Poland , where he won the championship in 2003 and became a Polish citizen. After he was subsequently active for the Polish national team, he also played briefly in Italy and Greece with a Polish passport before winning two more Polish championships with Prokom Trefl Sopot. He ended his playing career as player-coach for AZS Koszalin in 2009.

Career

Nordgaard went to school in his hometown, where in 1991 he became the first player - after the introduction of extensive counting of such statistics - to score a quadruple double in a school game in Minnesota. After graduating from school, he got a place at the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay , where he played for the Phoenix University team from 1992, initially in the then Mid-Continent Conference (MCC) of the NCAA . After the only participation in the national NCAA finals tournament in 1991, the Phoenix reached the finals again after winning the MCC championship tournament in 1994 and scored their first final victory against the higher-rated Golden Bears of the University of California at Berkeley . In the second round, however, they lost to the Orangemen of Syracuse University . After switching to the Horizon League , the Phoenix also won the 1995 championship tournament in this Conference, with Nordgaard being named the tournament's MVP . In 1996 the Phoenix remained unbeaten within the Horizon League in the regular season and Nordgaard was named "Player of the Year" in the Horizon League. In the nationwide finals, the Phoenix were eliminated in the first round as they had done a year earlier when they lost to the favored Boilermakers of Purdue University by one point and just missed a "cinderella story".

In the 1996 NBA draft , Nordgaard was selected in the second round at a total of 53rd position by the Milwaukee Bucks from his home state. Nevertheless, he completed his first professional season in the second Spanish league LEB for the former first division club Patronato from Bilbao , a predecessor club of the later one-time runner-up CB Bilbao Berri . The Basque team, however, retired as eleventh in the regular season in the first play-off round for promotion without a win. In the summer of 1997, however, Nordgaard made the jump into the squad of the Milwaukee Bucks, for which he had first short appearances in the 1997/98 NBA . In mid-December 1997 he was released from his contract, whereupon he played in the Continental Basketball Association for the Fury from Fort Wayne . In March 1998 Nordgaard got again a short-term contract for ten days with the Bucks, which was not extended, whereupon Nordgaard returned to the Fury. For the Bucks, Nordgaard completed a total of 13 appearances in the NBA with an average playing time of less than four minutes per game.

In the 1998/99 season Nordgaard played in the second Italian division Serie A2 for the first division relegated Viola from Reggio Calabria . Together with, among others, the young Argentine newcomer Manu Ginóbili , the later Olympic champion should be and more time NBA champion, Nordgaard managed with the Calabrian club winning the Ascension play-offs and the immediate return to the top flight Lega Basket Serie A . For the 1999/2000 season, Nordgaard signed a contract with the French first division club Basket Comté Doubs from Besançon . In the LNB Pro A , the team was able to improve by one place to eleventh place compared to the previous year, but once again failed to make it into the play-offs for the championship. After the CBA was suspended at the beginning of the 2000/01 season, Nordgaard was initially briefly in the squad of the Indiana Legends in the newly formed Minor League American Basketball Association , which only shared the common name with the ABA of the 1970s. However, he soon returned to France and played the season for Élan sportif from Chalon-sur-Saône to an end. The team also improved by one place from eighth to seventh place in the regular season and was eliminated in the first play-off round despite an opening success against the eventual title holder ÉB Pau-Orthez , who then no longer played in the play-offs that season lost.

For the 2001/02 season, Nordgaard moved to Poland for the first time and played in Włocławek for Anwil in the top Polish division Polska Liga Koszykówki together with, among other things, the NCAA MOP 1995 Ed O'Bannon . After three runner-ups in a row, the club initially only finished fourth in the 2001/02 season, but a year later the newly formed team won the club's first national championship title in 2003 after five runner-ups since the mid-1990s. Nordgaard took Polish citizenship and played for Polonia from Warsaw in the 2003/04 season . With this team you could win the bronze medal of the 2004 championship in the small final series and defending champion Anwil was relegated to fourth place. With his European passport, Nordgaard was again interesting for clubs from southern Europe and at the beginning of the 2004/05 season he played for six weeks with the Italian first division club Sedima Basket from Roseto degli Abruzzi . He then had another fixed-term contract with the Greek first division club Olympiakos from Piraeus in the A1 Ethniki , for which he also completed four preliminary round games in the highest-ranking European club competition ULEB Euroleague 2004/05 , as Olympiakos for the first and so far only after the preliminary round in this Competition eliminated. At the end of the season, Nordgaard played again for Polonia Warsaw, who lost the play-off semi-final series against Anwil this time and won the bronze medal again at the end.

For the 2005/06 season, Nordgaard moved to the Polish champions Prokom Trefl in Sopot , where he played again with Tomas Pačėsas , with whom he had already won his first Polish championship in 2003 with Anwil. In the ULEB Euroleague 2005/06 Prokom Trefl missed the intermediate round of the 16 best teams with five wins in 14 games, but a year later these five victories were enough to move into the intermediate round of the ULEB Euroleague 2006/07 , where the team won their first intermediate round Club won the away win after extra time at Efes Pilsen Istanbul . Nordgaard described his view of the season in a blog on the ULEB website . Series champion Prokom Trefl was able to successfully defend his championship title in Poland. After Nordgaard had helped qualify the Polish national team for a European Championship finals tournament for the first time in ten years in the summer of 2006 , he had to take a long break in the 2006/07 season due to a stubborn foot injury and was no longer represented in the final squad. which his former club coach Andrej Urlep also rejuvenated in his own country with a view to the European Championship that followed two years later. Even with the series champion Prokom Trefl, the mid-thirties Adam Wójcik , Nordgaard and the Lithuanian Pačėsas, who moved to the sidelines, had to make room in the squad. Nordgaard moved again within the Polish league to AZS from Koszalin . As seventh of the 2007/08 season, Nordgaard's new team lost in the play-off quarter-finals against defending champion Trefl Sopot, of all places. In the 2008/09 season, after the resignation of the previous coach, Nordgaard took over the coaching post early in the season, similar to the former German international Sebastian Machowski at Kotwica Kołobrzeg a season earlier, and the team lost again in the quarterfinals, this time against the seventh new and old runner-up Turów Zgorzelec . Then Nordgaard ended his active career at the age of 36.

Web links

• Jeff Nordgaard - player profile on the websites of the PLK ( Polish )
• Nordgaard, JEFF - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB ( English )
• archive.fiba.com: Players - Jeff Wallace NORDGAARD ​​(POL) - Overview of participation in FIBA tournaments (English)
• Jeff Nordgaard - player profile on basketball-reference.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ MSHSL Records - Basketball, Boys: Game - Individual. Minnesota High School League: mshsl.org, accessed Aug. 12, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Horizon League Men's Basketball Recordbook: Honors / Year-by-Year. (PDF (1.9 MB)) Horizon League , November 21, 2013, pp. 74/77 (internal count) , accessed on August 12, 2014 (English). 
3. ↑ Skip Myslenski: Purdue Gets Last-shot Scare, Tips Green Bay. Chicago Tribune , March 18, 1995, accessed August 12, 2014 (repro in the news archive). 
4. ↑ FEB.es: NORDGAARD, JEFF WALLACE. Federación Española de Baloncesto , accessed on August 12, 2014 (Spanish, player profile). 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Legabasket: Jeff Nordgaard. Lega Basket Serie A , accessed August 12, 2014 (Italian, player profile). 
6. ↑ Blogs - 2006-07 season: Jeff Nordgaard. ULEB , accessed on August 12, 2014 (English, overview). 
7. ^ Team Focus: Prokom Trefl Sopot. ULEB , September 21, 2007, accessed August 12, 2014 .