By DAVID JONES
Florida Today

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - When Florida coach Billy Donovan asked senior Matt Bonner to take a potential recruit around campus and show him the ropes this summer, he told him the player could really help the team if he decided to become a Gator.

In other words: play nice.

At the time, Bonner didn't know much about Christian Drejer, a 6-foot-9 guard from Hallerup, Denmark. He seemed like a good kid. They hit it off and enjoyed being around each other.

Then, after the visit, a Gator assistant sat down and put on some game tape for Bonner to watch of the kid he'd just shown around town.

"I was like ... wow!" Bonner recalls.

He turned to Florida video coordinator Tim Maloney with a stunned look on his face and said, "Why didn't you show me that before I met with him? If you'd showed me that before I met with him, I probably would have been kissing up to him."

They're learning.

Slowly but surely, college coaches are starting to pay more and more attention to the basketball being played overseas, following the lead of the NBA, which opened the season with a record 67 foreign-born players on its rosters.

American players don't know a lot about the Drejers of the world. But the Donovans are quickly finding out that the time has come to grab one if you can.

A stunned Bonner feels like he won the Florida Lottery. So does his new teammate.

"I just felt it was a special place," Drejer explained of picking Florida. "You kind of just know, have a good feeling about the place, the staff, the coaches and the other players. It's just natural you feel this will be the place."

How have times changed? Well, when South Carolina goes up against Vanderbilt this season, the post matchup much of the time will consist of a player from Poland against a recruit from Lithuania.

Florida skyrocketed in preseason publications - going from being an also-ran in some magazines and Internet polls to a national title contender in others, after landing Drejer (pronounced Dryer), who already has media scrambling for a nickname.

The Dunking Dane? The Danish Dunker? The Great Dane?

ESPN's Dick Vitale said Donovan "struck gold" with Drejer, who at 219 pounds needs to put on weight but averaged 31.9 points for SISU Kopenhagen last year. He's so tall, he could play forward but agile enough to be play point guard.

This is why coaches like Donovan have started panning in new streams.

America is the dream

Drejer, who's been slowed by with ligament damage in his ankle, was ranked the 14th-best freshman coming into the college season in Athlon's Top 100. He was also rated the top import from Europe. He was so good that NBA officials had told Drejer's family he would have been a mid-first round pick if he had declared for last summer's draft.

But Drejer grew up dreaming of playing college ball in the U.S., so his family was careful not to take money while playing on European teams to protect his amateur status. He turned down $1 million to play in Spain last year.

"It's a very special experience and you want that experience in your life," Drejer said of college in the U.S. "You have that opportunity only once in your life. I don't think I could lose anything going to college."

But he was a rarity - learning English, not taking any money and getting the proper class work to ensure eligibility in the U.S.

"When he was 15 years old, he really had the dreams and aspirations to try to come to the United States and play in college and he really did the best possible job he could keeping himself as an amateur," Donovan said. "And I think it's so difficult, with the language barrier, of trying to go through the (NCAA) Clearinghouse to get grades cleared that this situation was unique.

"He speaks fluent English, he was a full qualifier coming out. Really, a lot of things fell into place for us. Forget about him coming to the University of Florida (to play basketball) just with regarding his academics and all those types of things. Him keeping his amateur status: That's the one thing that's so hard."

But Drejer isn't alone in the growing migration of foreign-born players. The Southeastern Conference has learned a lot the last few years.

Alabama is counting on Lucky Williams of Nigeria. Arkansas forward Dionisio Gomez hails from Panama. Steve Leven is an Auburn guard from Australia.

Kentucky's Jules Camara is from Senegal. Poland produced Mississippi State's Michal Ignerski and Vanderbilt's David Przybyszewski. South Carolina features Marius Petravicius of Lithuania.

In the women's game, Auburn has a pair of centers from West Africa and British Columbia. South Carolina's roster includes guard Cristina Ciocan of Romania and center/forward Petra Ujhelyi from Hungary. Vanderbilt has Jutta Korkko of Finland ... and the list goes on and on.

Many teams that don't have at least one or two prominent foreign players are chasing others for next season. Recruiting, coaching and various other aspects of college hoops have been changed forever by the foreign influence at many programs.

And it figures to continue in the women's game, as well as men's, because they also dream of the U.S. The 6-foot-4 Ujhelyi, for example, studied English in Budapest while in high school so she would be prepared to take the American college entrance exams.

"I'm kind of open for new experiences," she said. "That's why I came here. I wanted to learn a new culture and see what it's all about."

Why all the attention being shifted overseas? Talent is one reason.

"I think once you get a couple of people over here and you see they are succeeding, I think it makes coaches go find someone to come and try to help their teams out," said Gomez, who left Panama for his senior year of high school in the U.S. in an effort to attract the attention of college coaches.

Making the adjustment to life in a new country isn't for every young basketball talent. And forecasting how they'll survive is also tough.

"It's been difficult in the beginning, but everything has been good so far," Drejer said. "I just thought it would be a really good opportunity for me to experience new stuff."

Gomez, now a 6-8 returning senior and starting forward at Arkansas, offers veteran advice: give it time.

"It is a tough transition because when you are at home, you've got everything - your family and your friends - and it's tough to leave them to start something new," Gomez said. "It's a big sacrifice and it's not easy."

European players boast sound fundamentals

Dozens of college coaches don't hesitate taking the chance on a talented foreign player because most are extremely disciplined and coached so strongly on basketball fundamentals.

"Europe has done a great, great job in dealing with their younger kids and putting them in some type of developmental league where they work with these kids," Donovan said. "I think part of the reason why the NBA has gone overseas to draft these kids is they work on their skill level four or five hours a day.

"And I think really, over here in the United States right now, a lot of the game is played with athleticism and maybe that's something that Europe is lacking - athleticism. But they also have great, great skill level as far as shooting, handling and passing. I think that's why you're seeing a trend and a movement in the NBA towards going overseas because of guys fundamentally understanding how to play the game."

The trend to recruiting more foreign players was a natural step. Colleges watched the pros pulling in solid players from overseas the last few years, and started realizing there must be more.

"Basketball in general is going more global," Mississippi coach Rod Barnes said. "It's so easy (to find players) with Internet access and recruiting and scouting. There's more NBA recruiting, as far as evaluating players overseas, so they get over there and they get to saying that this kid is good and that player is good. So what happens is they tell a friend or they tell a coach and now that's just the way it is. You just go everywhere to recruit."

Barnes doesn't see the day when every college is recruiting overseas, however. He says only the top programs, for the most part, will be able to get the best players in other countries - just like now.

"I think what you are probably going to have, you are going to have the elite programs going global," he said. "But we've got enough players in the United States to go around, especially when you've got the limit of 13 scholarships, only being able to sign five (in one year).

"But I think you'll see, as we've seen, more kids coming into the country making an impact. The quicker you can get over there and establish yourself, the better off you are to get players that will impact the teams because it's less recruiting."

Getting an "in" with players in another country could prove to be a huge advantage to a program.

"Everybody is going to recruit the kid from Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Connecticut and New Jersey," Barnes said. "But who's going to be recruiting a kid from Croatia or Senegal or Denmark? There won't be a lot of 'in.' You might have your top elite three or four teams getting in. But everybody's not recruiting that way all the time."

The talent base, however, figures to mushroom in many countries where the sport is taking off. Teenagers in other nations have fallen in love with the game like never before, thanks largely to the success of foreign stars like Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol.

"If they watch it on TV as kids, and they become fans and bounce the ball, then as you get elite athletes with enormous potential playing the game who didn't play it before, then you are only going to have an increase in talent level," NBA commissioner David Stern said.

No magic formula

"I don't know how all that works," LSU coach John Brady said of recruiting overseas. "I have a hard enough time trying to sign a local guy from Baton Rouge this year instead of chasing some guy overseas. Gee, whiz. If I take care of my backyard, I'll be fine for two or three years down the road.

"I don't need a foreign guy to keep my job ... but I'd like to have one."

And he got one, too. Jaime Lloreda of Colon, Panama, initially signed with Colorado but couldn't make the test score so he went to junior college for two years in Utah. His high school coach put in a call to Brady, and now Lloreda is settling nicely onto the LSU campus.

The Tigers suddenly have an inside presence that has the rest of the league scratching their heads and wondering, "Who's this guy?"

"He's very good around the goal, he can score with anybody on his back or hip it seems like, or get fouled," Brady said. "We haven't had that luxury. And he plays extremely hard. He loves to play. We'll practice three hours and he'll stay out there and keep playing."

These strange guys with these strange languages mean adjustments for the rest of the team.

"Sometimes, he sings in Spanish," Tigers senior guard Torris Bright said of Lloreda. "If he blocks a shot, he'll say something fast and nobody will know what he's saying."

But SEC players need no translator when they watch some of these foreign players coming into the league and think about the future of the game.

"They're coming from all over really," Bright said. "I think it's a message to the players in the U.S., basically, to better their game and not let some guys come from overseas and do a better job than they have."