Bell Signs Pro Deal
Former Princeton and East Brunswick star Amir Bell (NJ Hoops #18 Class of 2014), the reigning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, is headed to Sicily.
Bell signed Friday with Fortitudo Agrigento in Serie A2, the second-division league in Italy. T.J. Bray '14 played two seasons in Serie A2, first for Pallacanestro Trapani, also in Sicily, in 2014-15, and then for Junior Casale in northern Italy in 2015-16.
The signing comes just less than two years after Bell and teammates visited Italy as part of the program's quadrennial foreign trip, venturing as far south as Rome and as far north as Como.
Bell's Princeton career saw the East Brunswick, N.J., native finish 31st in program history in scoring, with 1,043 points. His 313 career assists were the sixth-most since the stat began being kept just more than 40 years ago, and his 118 games played were tied for fourth in program history. Bell had his highest-scoring season as a Tiger last winter, averaging 10.9 points and a career-best 5.4 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game.
Agrigento finished eighth in the Serie A2 West division with a 15-15 record. Jalen Cannon, a St. Francis (N.Y.) alum, led the team in scoring last season at 15.2 points per game while Pendarvis Williams (Hun School - NJ Hoops #10 postgrad Class of 2010), the only other American on the squad and a Norfolk State alum, was second with 12.8 points per game. Williams has since signed with BG Göttingen in Germany for the upcoming season.
In talking about Bell, Agrigento coach Franco Ciani harkened back to Mason Rocca '00, who played 14 years in Italian leagues.
"Amir is a versatile playmaker," Ciani said in the team's announcement. "[He] comes from a renowned college. Princeton has a very important program of both studies and athletics. Bell has great technical qualities that are associated with relevant personal and cultural attitudes. Princeton? Let's not forget that it was also Mason Rocca's college, not just any one. Bell is not a playmaker who monopolizes the game, far from it. In the last year he has had important averages, he knows how to defend but also to attack and to make a basket. We believe it is the right profile to enhance the group and the heritage of Italians we have on the team."
Bell Makes Pick - Nov 2012
Bell Talks Decision - Nov 2012
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