Murray State University Athletics
Scott Signs To Play In Europe
10/18/2007 5:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Joi Scott, last season's Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year and Kodak/WBCA All-American, has signed to play professional basketball with Boaviagem Angra Acores (Portugal) of FIBA EuroCup Women.
Scott -- who led the OVC and ranked ninth in Division I with 21.7 points per game and a shooting percentage of .584 from the field -- graduated from Murray State last spring with a degree in animal health technology.
"Murray has prepared me in ways that will help me perform at the next level," Scott said. "I'm able to accept responsibility and live up to certain expectations. If I weren't pursuing the athletic aspect, I would still be prepared to succeed in my chosen field because Murray has great academics. I have learned so much to prepare for the 'real' world."
Scott now begins her life in that real world, an international pro athlete who will be playing throughout the European continent.
"I'm really excited to go to the next level," she said before leaving the States. "I'm excited, I'm nervous -- I'm feeling every emotion possible rightnow. I can't wait to get over there. We start practice the day I arrive (Aug. 31), then we practice for three weeks, then we start the schedule."
Scott's team is based in Angra do Heroismo on the island of Terceira in the Azores Islands, a protectorate of Portugal located on the Atlantic Ocean, some 3,300 miles east of Murray and 1,000 miles from Lisbon, Portugal, the nearest point on the European continent. About three-fourths of the way along a straight line between Washington, D.C., and Lisbon, Portugal, it is fairly isolated, a spot in the Atlantic in what would be a 15-hour drive to the nearest land mass, but what it lacks in terra firma, it more than makes up for in beauty.
"It's like a resort," she said. "It's right there on the water, and the weather is really nice."
Scott is joined on her European team by former Northern Illinois teammate Kristin Weiner. The team began EuroCup play today (Oct. 18), although the team has already played some games in EuroLeague.
