By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
The international element of the Darting Basketball Academy has made big progress over its first two years and is set to take another huge step this summer.
The program numbers more than doubled last summer from Year 1, while also including female athletes for the first time, and a whopping 80 athletes are set to arrive in the area this week.
"We'll have 72 boys and eight girls,'' Darting said. "We'll have seven teams. We'll have three teams that are here to just kind of experience basketball and have fun and then we'll have teams that their objective in coming here is to stay in the states and go to prep school or college.''
The international players, competing as College Star International under the DBA umbrella, will take part in a showcase event at Shawnee Heights on Tuesday, July 7, in front of some 50 coaches.
The showcase will include a 6:30 p.m. game between the top international players and a group of local all-stars.
"We have 45 coaches confirmed, prep school and college, and I think we'll probably have more than that,'' Darting said. "That's what the kids are coming here for is to have college coaches to be here watching them, so to have 45 coaches coming to Topeka, Kansas, that's big.''
Following the Shawnee Heights showcase, the international contingent will compete in tournaments in Omaha, Kansas City and Chicago.
The international players are staying in dorms on the University of Kansas campus and training in Lawrence and at Shawnee Heights.
The international program has brought in athletes from Australia, Italy, Spain, Lithuania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Norway, Turkey, Germany and Sweden since it launched in 2024.
"The recruiting process is way more streamlined now,'' Darting said. "We've been going overseas in the winter and doing camps and you're making a lot more connections over there, so we're getting more kids.
"We go all over and this year we went to Turkey, Italy, Germany and Lithuania. The numbers are obviously way, way bigger but also the quality of players is getting quite a bit better as well.''
