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Princeton University Athletics
With New Team, Bray '14 to Return to Italy for Second Pro Season
August 04, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Princeton basketball alum T.J. Bray '14 will return to Italy for his second season of professional basketball, this time to the country's north with A.S. Junior Casale.
Bray's new team is based in Casale Monferrato, about halfway between Turin and Milan. Last season, he played with Pallacanestro Trapani, located on the western coast of Sicily in the country's south. Both teams are in Italy's A2 Gold division, the second-highest level of professional basketball in the country.
For Trapani in 2014-15, Bray averaged 9.5 points and 3.9 rebounds a game, both fifth on the team, while leading the club with three assists per game. He'll be joining a Casale team that finished the 2014-15 regular season fourth in the 14-team league before reaching the league semifinals.
Bray has spent the past two summers playing in the NBA Las Vegas Summer League, with Toronto in 2014 and the New York Knicks last month. GoPrincetonTigers.com caught up with Bray in Las Vegas during his time with the Knicks.
At Princeton, Bray was a first-team All-Ivy League honoree and a strong candidate for Ivy League Player of the Year as a senior after being a part of three postseason-bound Tiger teams and the 2011 Ivy League championship and NCAA Tournament team as a freshman.
One of 30 members of Princeton's 1,000-point club, Bray stands third on the program's career assist list with 374 (kept since 1974-75) and holds the program record for assists in a game with 13, set in Princeton's comeback win at Penn State during his senior season.
In Casale's official announcement on Bray's signing, coach Marco Ramondino said, "T.J. is a player with many technical qualities and character. [He] has had an important training both at school and sport at Princeton and, despite [being] only 23 years old, already knows the Italian championship. [He has the ability to take the advantage in several ways and is extremely unselfish, can attack in one-on-one ... [and] he can use the pick and roll and build shots for his teammates ... [He] has the mentality of a point guard and physicality that will allow us to explore a number of solutions."