Derek Simpson will spend part of his summer playing basketball overseas.
The Rutgers sophomore guard received an invitation to participate in a European tour with USA Garden State Basketball — an organization founded by former Scarlet Knights coach Fred Hill Jr. — in its inaugural overseas trip this summer. The 10-day excursion will be run from June 21 through June 30 and feature four games — three in Croatia (Dubrovnik, Zadar and Opatija) and one in Slovenia (Koper).
The tour, which will feature a cruise via Seabourn Cruise Lines, and the USA Garden State Basketball organization was inspired by the unaffiliated USA East Coast basketball program that invited Rutgers stars Aundre Hyatt and Paul Mulcahy to similar opportunities in recent years.
“USA Garden State Basketball started from the great experiences my former players had in taking these European trips with USA East Coast basketball,” Hill Jr. told NJ Advance Media this week. “Having been an assistant coach on trips with USA East Coast basketball, we wanted to highlight the great tradition and history of New Jersey basketball and give New Jersey players specifically the opportunity to make this educational, cultural and international experience that is once-in-a-lifetime.”
Simpson was the first player named to the 12-player roster, which will consist entirely of athletes with a tie to New Jersey; that includes N.J. natives or those who featured for an N.J. high school or college.
The 6-foot-3 guard is in his second season at Rutgers after starring at Lenape High School. He’s played in all 61 games he could during his time in Piscataway. He is averaging 9.1 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 32 minutes per game through 27 games this season.
Hill Jr. has a strong connection to the Simpson family: as an assistant coach at Rider in the mid-1980′s, he recruited and coached Derek’s father Ron, who went on to score 1,735 points for the Broncs and was named to the University’s Athletic Hall of Fame. Hill served as the head coach at Rutgers for four seasons (2006-10) after serving as an assistant coach in Piscataway for a year (2005-06); he also served two separate stints as an assistant coach at Seton Hall (1998-2001; 2013-2018).
Simpson has opened a GoFundMe campaign to help fund the opportunity, which those who are interested in donating can find here. All donations are tax-deductible through the Team Hill Foundation.
“From having been the head coach at Rutgers and it being the state University, I felt it was very important to kick this off with a Rutgers player, and I thought that Derek was the perfect fit,” Hill Jr. said. “The fact I have coached his dad, the fact he was one of the faces of the program at such a young age with such a bright future, the fact he was a New Jersey high school player, it just made the most sense to me that he was a guy that I would want on our inaugural trip to Europe.”
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Brian Fonseca may be reached at bfonseca@njadvancemedia.com.