K'Zell Wesson

K'Zell Wesson
Player information
Full name	K'Zell Ray Wesson
birthday	24th June 1977 (age 43)
place of birth	Portland , Oregon , United States
size	201 cm
position	Power Forward / Center
college	La Salle
Club information
society	Orkide Gediz ÜSK
league	TB2L
Jersey number	44
Clubs as active
1995–1996 SCS Bulldogs ( NCAA ) 1996–1997 USU-EU Golden Eagles (NJCAA) 1997–1999 La Salle Explorers (NCAA) 1999 Atlantic City Seagulls ( USBL ) 1999–2000 Trenton Shooting Stars ( IBL ) 2000 Atlantic City Seagulls 2000– 2001 Büyük Kolej 2001 Atlantic City Seagulls 2001 Cocodrilos de Caracas 2001–2003 Cholet Basket 2003–2004 Euro Roseto 2004–2005 BCM Gravelines 2005–2006 Strasbourg IG 2006–2007 Brose Baskets 2007–2008 AEK Athens 2008 PAOK Thessaloniki 2009 Beşiktaş Cola Turka 2009– 2010 Pınar Karşıyaka 2010–2011 Türk Telekomspor 2011 Petrochimi Bandar 2011–2012 Erdemirspor 2012–2013 Başkent Gençlik 2013–2014 Sigal Prishtina 2014 Pertevniyal SK Istanbul 2014–2015 Orkide Gediz ÜSK 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000

K'Zell Ray Wesson (born June 24, 1977 in Portland , Oregon ) is an American basketball player . Wesson's greatest success as a player was the 2007 German championship with the Brose Baskets from Bamberg and victory in the 2005 French cup competition with BCM Gravelines. In his eventful career, Wessons initially played in minor leagues in his home country and for a longer period in France, Greece and Turkey. Although little more than two meters of height was measuring the particular strength of the athletic and powerful player's rebound , which is why he in the frontcourt has also been used to much longer players. After Wesson had played for various clubs in Turkey for a long time, he played for the Kosovar runner-up Sigal Prishtina, who also plays in the supranational Balkan International Basketball League , in the 2013/14 season .

Career

Colleges (1995 to 1999)

Even as a student, Wesson was relatively unsteady. After a season for the Bulldogs of South Carolina State University , with which he won the 1996 championship tournament of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and conceded a significant first-round defeat at the NCAA statewide finals against the Jayhawks of the University of Kansas , he initially went back to that Junior College "USU-College of Eastern Utah" in Price (Utah) , which has a college team of Golden Eagles in the National Junior Collegiate Athletic Association. After that year he went to La Salle University in Philadelphia on the east coast, where he played again in NCAA Division I for the Explorers college team. The Explorers, then only for a short time in the Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10), could neither achieve anything in their conference, nor qualify for an NCAA finals.

Minor Leagues USA (1999 to 2001)

Then Wesson played in the summer of 1999 in the summer league United States Basketball League for the Seagulls from Atlantic City (New Jersey) in order to recommend himself in this way for a contract in a better paid US professional league . In the 1999/2000 season there was only one engagement with the Trenton Shooting Stars in the newly founded IBL , which was to merge with the newly founded CBA just two years later . After another engagement with the Seagulls in the summer of 2000, Wesson played in the 2000/01 season for the first time in Europe, before playing again in the summer of 2001 with the Seagulls and the Cocodrilos from Caracas , Venezuela . Subsequently, he focused his career on Europe.

Start in Europe (2000 to 2006)

After Wesson already played in the 2000/01 season for newcomer Büyük Kolej from Ankara in the Türkiye Basketbol Ligi (TBL) and was eliminated with the club as ninth in the main round in the qualifying round of the championship play-offs , he received for the season 2001/02 a contract in Cholet, France . There he was able to bring a double-double on average with points and rebounds from the TBL 2000/01 as a recommendation . In the LNB Pro A they reached third place after the main round and lost the play-off semi-final series against the eventual champions ASVEL . While his teammate Tony Dorsey left the club, Wesson stayed in Cholet the following season. This would subsequently be the only time that he stayed with a club for more than one season. As fifth they were eliminated in the first play-off round against BCM Gravelines. Wesson moved to the Italian Roseto degli Abruzzi as the best rebounder of the Pro A 2002/03 with a double-double on average . However, Roseto missed another play-off placement in the Lega Basket Serie A, as did Wesson just barely missed a double-double on average with 14.9 points and 9.5 rebounds. He then returned to France and played in the 2004/05 season for runner-up BCM Gravelines on the English Channel . Gravelines won his first national title with the French cup competition, but retired early on as a table ninth in the play-off qualifying round for the championship. Wesson again scored a double-double on average and was once again the best rebounder in the French league. For the following season 2005/06 he moved to the champions IG Basket from Strasbourg , but they could not repeat their title success and were eliminated in the play-off semi-final series as defending champions. In the preliminary round of the ULEB Euroleague 2005/06 they were eliminated prematurely after only three wins in 14 games, after losing twice in the highest European club competition to the German champions GHP Bamberg.

Germany and Greece (2006 to 2008)

For the 2006/07 season, Wesson received a contract in the German basketball league with Brose Baskets, the new name of GHP Bamberg, who had previously been unable to defend their title. In the basketball Bundesliga 2006/07 , however, they remained victorious as third in the main round in the championship play-offs and brought the second championship to Bamberg. After an injury to the intervertebral disc, Wesson could not act as usual and had to sit out a few games, so that he did not reach a double-digit average over the season in points or rebounds. In the semifinals and in the final series of the play-offs, however, he again achieved an average of more than ten rebounds. However, Wesson left the club again and went to Greece to AEK from the capital Athens in the A1 Ethniki . With this club he returned to the play-offs for the Greek championship, in which they lost to Olympiacos in the first round . He then joined PAOK from Thessaloniki , which he left prematurely after the start of the 2008/09 season.

End of career in Turkey (since 2009)

For the remainder of the 2008-09 season, Wesson returned to Turkey , where he began his European career in 2000. With Beşiktaş Cola Turka from Istanbul , however, he was eliminated in the first play-off round against local rivals Galatasaray Café Crown . For the 2009/10 season he then went to Izmir to Pınar Karşıyaka, which was eliminated at the end of the season in the first play-off round. In the 2010/11 season he then played for Türk Telekom in Ankara, which, however, missed the play-offs, although Wesson was close to a double-double per game for the first time with over nine rebounds on average. In the following season, the team from Erdemir was also no longer enough to make it into the play-offs for the championship. Then Wesson got no more contract in the top division and he played in the 2012/13 season in the second division for Başkent Gençlik from the capital Ankara. For the 2013/14 season he moved to Kosovo for runner-up KB Sigal Prishtina Priština . At the end of the season, Wesson moved back to the second Turkish division for club Pertevniyal from Istanbul, before he was active for the university sports club Orkide Gediz from Izmir in the following season 2014/15.

Web links

• Ray Wesson - Turkish Basketball League Player - Statistics from the top Turkish league at TBLStat.net ( English )
• WESSON, K'ZELL - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB (English)
• K'Zell Wesson - Strasbourg - Joueurs - Pro A - Profile on the website of the French LNB ( French )

Individual evidence

1. ^ South Carolina State Bulldogs vs. Kansas Jayhawks - Box Score - March 15, 1996. ESPN , accessed April 8, 2013 (English, game statistics). 
2. ↑ Ray Wesson - Turkish Basketball League Player: 2000-2001 Regular Season. TBLStat.net, accessed on April 8, 2013 (English, seasonal statistics). 
3. ↑ Legabasket: K'Zell Wesson. Lega Basket Serie A , accessed April 8, 2013 (Italian, profile on statistics pages). 
4. ^ Wesson receives contract in Bamberg. (No longer available online.) Basketball Bundesliga , July 26, 2006, formerly in the original ; accessed on April 8, 2013 (Medien-Info GHP Bamberg).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
5. ↑ K'Zell Wesson - Brose Baskets. (No longer available online.) Basketball Bundesliga , archived from the original on November 26, 2015 ; accessed on April 8, 2013 (player profile on statistics pages). 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.  
6. ↑ Lubomir Neshev: Sigal Prishtina added KZell Wesson. Balkan International Basketball League , September 19, 2013, accessed September 30, 2013 .