Ants lose swingman, guard to Italy, Spain
When the Mad Ants return to Fort Wayne on Feb. 5 for only their third home game in 37 days, they will have a significantly different look than the last time they were in town.
Leading scorer Sammy Mejia and guard Walker Russell Jr. will be off the team and out of the country.
Mejia, the 6-foot-6 swingman who led the Ants in scoring with 19.5 points per game, and Russell, the 6-1 guard whose jump shot with 1.5 seconds remaining gave the Ants a dramatic 95-93 victory over Los Angeles in their last home game on Jan. 20, left the team to accept offers in Europe – Mejia in Italy and Russell in Spain.
“Fort Wayne wasn’t the problem,” said Mejia, who missed the first 10 games of the NBA D-League season with a leg injury. “It’s hard to be in one spot, and everybody’s goal is not to be there. It’s a different kind of comfort being over there. Nobody who is part of the Mad Ants wants to be in the Mad Ant uniform. I got comfortable in a different kind of way.”
Just as the Ants lose two players, they also gain two.
Cheikh Samb, the 7-foot-1 center who was sent from the Detroit Pistons and played two games in Fort Wayne in mid-December before being sidelined with a broken jaw, is returning to the team.
“We should have Cheikh Samb coming in (Monday),” Ants president and general manager Jeff Potter said. “I just talked to him and he’s in his car and should be here.”
Samb played in back-to-back games Dec. 13 and 14 against Dakota, averaging 13.5 points, nine rebounds and four blocks.
The other acquisition is 5-foot-9 guard Anthony Kyle.
“He played really well in training camp in open tryout,” Potter said. “He can score, he can shoot, he can dribble. He’s a quality player. Instead of going into the (D-League) pool and getting someone off the scrap heap that maybe was cut from other teams, we decided to get a guy who was young and hungry and wanted to make a name for himself.”
Potter said both Samb and Kyle are expected to be with the team when the Ants play back-to-back games in Sioux Falls on Friday and Saturday.
stwarden@jg.net