Three Pirates Division 1 bound next year

Home Archived Sports Three Pirates Division 1 bound next year

By Nathan Deen

Published on December 5, 2007

Three sophomores from the PJC men’s basketball team will continue their basketball careers at Division 1 schools next year.  Guard Lasha Parghalava will be playing at the University of South Florida, forward Eugene Blue will return to his home state of Michigan to play at the University of Detroit and center Buford Foote will head to Morgan State University.

“We’re very happy for them,” said head coach Paul Swanson, “and we’re pleased that they were able to find four year schools that they liked and schools that liked them. We’re confident that they’ll go on and do great things and make themselves, their families, and PJC proud. All of them have work to do yet though to be able to compete at the four-year level and to truly reach their potential at that level.”

Parghalava came to PJC from the Republic of Georgia. The sophomore said that PJC was the only school to take interest in him as he was finishing high school. PJC gave him the opportunity to show his playing ability and it has finally paid off. Parghalava says that he has a lot of work to do before he can compete at a school like the University of South Florida. USF is a member of the Big East Conference in NCAA Division I basketball, considered by many college basketball experts to be the most difficult conference to play in. The conference includes prominent basketball schools such as Syracuse University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Louisville, and Georgetown University.

After finishing his college career at USF, Parghalava plans to return to his home country of Georgia and to play in a professional basketball league.

Eugene Blue grew up in Flint, Mich. and will be attending the University of Detroit next year. Blue says that it is just a 50-minute drive from the campus to his hometown. This was one of the main reasons that he chose Detroit. Instead of living over a thousand miles from his family, he’ll be able to regularly visit them on weekends.

“I think it’s a great place to be to play basketball and to grow as a player and as a student,” Blue said. “They have one of the best graduation rates in Division I basketball.”

Blue plans to get a degree in physics while at Detroit and to work in the field after he graduates.

Detroit is also a NCAA Division I school, located in the Horizon League, which was represented in the 2007 Sweet 16 by Butler University.

Buford Foote will be attending Morgan State University in Baltimore, Md., another NCAA Division I school that represents the Mid-East Atlantic Conference, the same conference that Florida A&M University is in.

“It’s a really beautiful campus,” Foote said.

Like Parghalava, Foote said that PJC was one of few schools that were interested in recruiting him and gave him a chance to show his ability.

Foote hopes that basketball is in his future after getting a degree from Morgan State.