Back to the Land Down Under, Sanders returns to Australia to continue pro career

Back to the Land Down Under, Sanders returns to Australia to continue pro career

SUNBURY, Australia – After spending a year with El Yosiquesé Cordobasket, a team in the Spanish EBA league, Carson-Newman men's basketball alum Ish Sanders is returning to a league and a team where he arguably had his greatest individual success. 

Sanders heads back to Sunbury, Australia to suit up for the Sunbury Jets of the Big V - Australia's professional league.  Now in the fifth year of his professional career, Sanders spent the 2016-17 season in Sunbury as well.  

Sanders was recognized as one of the five best players in the Big V his last trip through Australia. 

"Ish has become a seasoned vet," his former head coach Chuck Benson said. "I'm not at all surprised that he has the opportunities to continue his playing career. His performance on the floor here was as good as anyone in our history."

The Cleveland, Tenn.-native was second in that league in scoring with 28.3 points per game for the Sunbury Jets.  He also averaged 4.7 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.5 steals per contest. 

Sanders dumped in at least 20 points in all but two games he played.  His most prolific outing came against Mildura.  Sanders scored 51 points, matching a total that he produced in his freshman season at Mossy Creek that stood as a school record for six years before Charles Clark passed it in February 2017.  Sanders connected on 9-of-18 triples that day and 19-of-34 field goals.

Including that 51-point onslaught against Mildura, Sanders topped 30 points on five occasions.  He had 48 against Chelsea and 45 against Geelong in early May on his way to being named player of the month. 

Carson-Newman's all-time leading three-point shooter, Sanders drilled at least six triples on four occasions.  He averaged 4.27 made threes per game and was only held below three makes four times. 

Sanders also counts stops in Slovakia and Kosovo in his professional career, in addition to last year's stop in Spain. He is one of two Carson-Newman alums actively playing professionally.  Recent grad and the program's all-time leading scorer Charles Clark is playing in Iceland.  All told, Chuck Benson has produced a quarter of pros in the last five years.  Antoine Davis played in Germany while Josh Rogers spent a couple years in Israel's professional league.