South Carolina Warriors lose pair of players, add two

The South Carolina Warriors are bidding farewell to two more players who have found a professional opportunity overseas, and the team has already secured a couple of newcomers to fill the void.

Former Coastal Carolina standout Mario Edwards and College of Charleston product Dustin Scott are expected to leave Wednesday to join a team called KB Peja in Kosovo. They will play their final game with the Warriors on Monday night as the team host the Athens Razors at the Carolina Forest Recreation Center.

“Both of those guys will have a real opportunity to be successful,” Warriors coach Chris Beard said. “They’ve been with us since the first day of training camp – two of our better players and really, really good people. I’m really proud of them and excited about their opportunity. We lose two really good players and we’ll bring two new ones in.”

Beard said the team has signed former Kentucky forward Perry Stevenson and former California center Markhuri Sanders-Frison, and both will be in uniform Monday night, though it’s not certain if or how much they will play in the game.

Stevenson, listed at 6-foot-9 and 220 pounds, ranks fifth all-time at Kentucky with 159 career blocked shots. He averaged 7.8 points and 5.9 rebounds as a junior starter before playing a reduced role as a senior and most recently was trying to catch on in the NBA Development League.

“Perry was a top-50 player coming out of high school from Lafayette, Louisiana,” Beard said. “I recruited him when I was at Texas Tech. We didn’t get him obviously because he went to Kentucky, but I’ve stayed in touch with his high school coach over the years.”

Stevenson, who arrived in Myrtle Beach on Sunday, spent some time last season with the D-League’s Tulsa 66ers and was in preseason camp this season with the Bakersfield Jam before sustaining an injury. He said he’s eager to get back to action on the court again.

“[It’s] another opportunity to play basketball,” Stevenson said after his first practice with the Warriors on Sunday. “The last team I was playing for was in the D-League. Unfortunately, I got hurt in team camp during cuts. It was a numbers thing after that. But that’s [what] this is: another opportunity. Coach said there’s a good group of guys, and after playing with them already I can already tell. Talent aside, I can already see they’re good guys.”

Sanders-Frison, meanwhile, was set to arrive in town late Sunday night. The 6-foot-7, 265-pounder averaged 10.9 points and 7.4 rebounds last season at Cal. He ranked third in the Pac-10 last season in field goal percentage (58.9) and made an NCAA tournament appearance with the Golden Bears as a junior.

Beard was familiar with him from the player’s junior college days in Texas.

“This is his first professional experience,” Beard said. “… He just graduated with an American Studies degree from California, which tells you what kind of intelligence this guy has.”

As for the players leaving the squad, Edwards averaged 13.8 points, 6.8 assists and 5.0 rebounds with the Warriors, while Scott posted averages of 15.4 points, 8.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists while shooting 66 percent from the field.

They helped the Warriors to a 10-0 start in the team’s inaugural season in the American Basketball Association. Beard said their contracts run through May over in Kosovo, and the opportunity arose through a contact of his.

“I’ve got probably a half dozen really, really close friends in basketball that are agents, and then one of them I’ve been in touch with since the first day of training camp,” Beard said. “I told these guys when we recruited them to this team, I’d be more than happy to help them, but I can’t do that until I really know them and I trust them. As much as I liked them on the phone, I had to get to know them because if I’m going to put my name [behind] somebody professionally, it’s got to be somebody I believe in. And Mario and Dustin really earned my respect and my full recommendation. …

“I think both of them have a legitimate chance to be a pro. Mario’s got great size for a guard and can do multiple things, and then Dustin can literally be a Euroleague-type player. Dustin can play for the [top] dollar one day because of his combination of skill and size. So this is a great opportunity for them.”

As for the game Monday night, the Razors are ranked No. 13 in the ABA’s national power rankings. The Warriors are No. 2 on that list, and this will be their first opportunity to play another ranked team.

“Each game we play is an opportunity to compete and get better, but certainly [Monday night] brings some special things with this game,” Beard said. “One, we get to play an ABA team that is ranked. I’m not sure what that means, but it means somebody has addressed them as one of the better teams. So we’ll see how we stack up. And then two, we really want to send Mario Edwards and Dustin Scott off the way we started this. It will be an emotional game.”