ALBERTO CESSEL '16 Recruiting Profile

I grew up in Siena, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in Tuscany, Italy.  My city is famous for the Palio, a medieval horse race that is still a strong tradition among the local population,  and attracts tourist two times per year from every part of the planet.

On the basketball court, my greatest skill is my IQ: I'm smarter and I know the game better than any of the big men I have ever played against. I always perfectly know all the plays, I can run them and I understand which one to use in each different moment of the game, depending on what the team needs. I can always do the right thing at the right moment, and I can really pass the ball, even though I'm this tall. I can rebound the ball and play in the post very well, and I can also shoot from the mid-range and sometimes from the 3-pts line. I am the player every coach wants in his team, because I'm very coachable, I always support my teammates and I'm a great worker: for example, I'm always the last player to leave the court after practice and always willing to do an extra workout or some ball handling or post drills to improve my game.

I have been playing basketball and also watching live games since I was born; my club team was Virtus Siena, one of the best in Italy in the development of young players. Unfortunately at the begin I was too tall and too thin to play, and my coaches used to tell me that, because of my body, I couldn't stand on the court among all the other players. So I have put all of my effort in practicing, so that when I got 16 years old a coach of a major division team in italy noticed that I could actually play and selected me for a 4-days gathering with the under-18 Italian National Basketball Team. I proved everybody who ever doubted of me. Since then, most important italian clubs such as Fortitudo Bologna and Rimini Crabs invited me for join them for some tournaments and offered me a spot in their teams, but i turned them down because my only dream is to play college basketball.

Both my parents have played pro basketball, but never forced me to do so. They only forced me to attend the hardest schools in Italy as they both got a bachelor degree and played in basketball italian first division while studying: they always taught me that education is more important than any sports.

I attended Liceo Classico E. S. Piccolomini High School, one of the hardest high schools in Italy, mostly focused on classical literary studies, such as Latin and ancient Greek. Even there I have always stood as one of the best students both for athletics and academics.

I was one of the best members of the student's indipendent group for extrascholastic activities such as theatre, proms and sports events. I also partecipated and won the mathematics national championship in my 9th grade, thanks to which I passed a whole weekend in Milan, guest of the Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, the university that had organized this mathematics national championship.

I took the SAT exam on June, at the end of my 11th grade, when I was still living in Italy, and i got a 2000 total score, with a really good 710 on the mathemathics section.  Anyway, I will be taking it again as soon as possible, because I'm sure that, after having lived in the US for months, I will be able to raise my grades on the Writing and Critical-Reading sections.

On October 2015 I accepted coach Baines' (Mount Zion Christian Acedemy) offer and moved into Durham, NC.

My first semester exams were very good.

My only hope is to find a very good college, especially for achademics and to play basketball.

I wish to study business and marketing.

I want to study in US and to play in a D1 team and will try everything to realize my dream.