Former Tennessee guard Santiago Vescovi signed a two-year contract with Spanish professional team BAXI Manresa on Thursday morning, the club announced.
BAXI Manresa plays in Liga ACB, the top basketball league in Spain, and also competes in the Basketball Champions League. The Basketball Champions League pits the top teams across Europe against one another no matter the country they play in.
Last season, BAXI Manresa finished in eighth place out of 18 teams in the league which was good enough to earn the final playoff spot. They’ve won just one championship in the club’s history which came in 1997-98. The club has largely struggled this century, making the playoffs just three times and losing in the quarterfinals each team.
Vescovi heads to Spain to play his professional basketball after a strong five-year career at Tennessee. The left-handed shooting guard was a First Team All-SEC selection in both his junior and senior seasons. In the 2021-22 season, Vescovi averaged 13.3 points per game on 40% shooting from three-point range before averaging 12.5 points on 37% shooting from three-point range during the 2022-23 season.
The Montevideo, Uruguay native struggled offensively in his super senior season, averaging just 6.3 points per game on 33% shooting from three-point range. Vescovi’s three-point shot is his bread-and-butter and it struggled in his final collegiate season.
Still, Vescovi remained in Tennessee’s starting lineup and was a valuable piece because of his defensive prowess and high basketball IQ.
Vescovi is high on the leaderboards of a number of Tennessee basketball career stats including fourth in made three-pointers and second in assists to turnover ratio.
Before signing professionally with BAXI Manresa, Vescovi played with the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Summer League where he averaged 3.0 points, 2.5 assists and 2.3 rebounds in 12.1 minutes per game.
