'3gor' Koulechov: International Man (And Gator) of Mystery

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The news broke on Twitter the first week of April. Florida coach Mike White was driving to the beach with two of his kids when his cell phone rang and assistant coach Dusty May was on the other end with word that Egor Koulechov, a talented all-league forward from Rice, had been granted a release and thus had officially hit the graduate transfer market.

In watching tape of UF opponents the previous two seasons, May had come across Koulechov a few times.

"This guy is really, really good," May told White.

So White wasted no time. Within five minutes he had Koulechov's contact info and in 10 minutes had Koulechov on the phone from Houston. He talked about the front court voids left by NBA-bound Devin Robinson and fifth-year senior Canyon Barry. The Gators, he explained, had a solid core of players returning from a team that won 27 games and fell one victory shy of the Final Four. Then White gushed about the numbers Koulechov put up, especially from the 3-point line, numbers May provided in advance of the call.

It was about that point in the conversation that Koulechov asked a question.

"Coach," he said. "Have you ever seen me play?"

White had been called out. Now, he needed to tell the truth.

"No, to be honest," White said. "But my assistant has, and he likes you a lot."

Said Koulechov: "Why don't you watch me on film some first before we talk about how good a fit I'd be."

White respected the request. He also thought, in his exuberance, he'd undercut any chance of landing one of the premier grad transfer prospects in the country. Nonetheless, White got to the beach, pulled out his laptop and watched an hour of Rice tape and watched an undersized, 6-foot-5 forward all over the floor, scoring 18.2 points per game, grabbing 8.9 rebounds, dishing 2.1 assists and raining a deadly 47.4 percent from the 3-point line.

Points. Boards. Threes. Toughness. Feel. Yeah, he'd fit in.

"To be honest, I really thought I'd rubbed him the wrong way," White said last week, recalling that initial conversation. "I didn't know when I called him back if he'd even pick up the phone."

Oh, but Koulechov did pick up.

Now he's going to help pick up the Gators during the 2017-18 season. Before UF opens full-blown fall practice Thursday, the team will hold its media day Tuesday and Koulechov — born in Russia, raised in Israel, schooled in Florida, speaker of three languages and now at his third Division-I program in five seasons — will be a popular subject given the expectations, both internal and external, for instant impact.

"I believe I can help this team, whatever my role turns out to be," Koulechov said. "I know we have a lot of weapons and have a chance to be very, very good."

His arrival fortified that arsenal of weapons, with Koulechov, as White conjectured, an ideal fit after the exits of a pair of very productive wing players in Robinson and Barry.

Remember, it was Barry who parachuted in last year as a grad transfer by way of the College of Charleston. He was a mid-major star looking for a a big-time college basketball experience. A willingness to accept a role off the bench was the tradeoff. Barry went on to finish second on the team in scoring, was named Southeastern Conference Sixth Man of the Year and played in the Elite Eight at Madison Square Garden.

Now it's Koulechov's turn to be a hired gun.

"Like Canyon, he was the star player on his team, getting 35 minutes a game, but for some guys that's not enough," senior point guard Chris Chiozza said of his new teammate and roommate. "Some guys want to win and want to go as far as they can in the tournament."

For Koulechov, the best chance to do that was here.

FROM RUSSIA WITH FAMILY

Egor Koulechov was born in Volgograd, Russia, in 1994, just three years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Volgograd (formerly known as Stalingrad), like the rest of the country, struggled with political and economic reform following the fall of the USSR. In 1999, about the time the only child of Michael and Rimma Koulechov was set to begin school, Russia was in a depression that saw tens of thousands attempting to flee the country.

One of the preferred destinations was Israel.

"I went to my first day of school in Russia," Koulechov said. "The next day I was on a plane to Israel."

The family settled for communal living in a kibbutz, a small, village-like existence where the residents farmed the land for food. The Koulechovs stayed there for three years while Michael learned Hebrew and worked various jobs and Rimma found work as an accountant.

Eventually, they moved to Rishon LeTsiyon, a city just outside Tel Aviv, and made a life for themselves.

"It wasn't easy, but at the same time my parents always made sure I had what I needed and the opportunities I needed," said Koulechov, who learned English by watching cartoons. "Nothing ever stood between me and what I wanted to do."

Sports included.

At first it was soccer, and Egor was good at it. He played it until he was 13, but the Koulechovs didn't have a car and couldn't get him to practice. He turned to tennis. Only temporarily, though.

"It's an expensive sport," he said.

There was a basketball court about a five-minute walk from their house. Egor started hanging around and playing, mostly as a lark to pass the time and meet some new friends. Several played in youth leagues, but when the time came to sign up, Egor declined.

Instead, his mother signed him up and informed her son he had practice one day. Because of where his birthday fell, Egor had to play with (and against) mostly older kids.

"I wasn't very good," he said. "I remember being frustrated because I couldn't do much, other than rebound. I couldn't shoot the ball at all. I was terrible."

Clockwise from right: Egor Koulechov in uniform for his first Israeli national team; Smiling with trophies after a tournament; With his father, Michael, on a family vacation to Turkey; Egor (right) teammates on one of his first youth clubs.

Egor would dread one-on-one drills at practice. He couldn't dribble, couldn't put the ball in the basket, so he chased his misses and those of others. Relentlessly. Like the time his coach tallied Egor for a cool 3-for-24 from the free-throw line to go with 24 rebounds.

He had a knack for finding the ball and despite an inability to score, his interest in the game increased each time he played. He also started paying attention to professional basketball, both in Europe and the United States. It was in 2007 that he discovered a TV channel that televised U.S. college basketball and watched Stephen Curry, then a freshman at Davidson, hang 40 on Gonzaga in the NCAA Tournament. The atmosphere seemed electric and got Egor wondering about the possibilities as he practiced hours a day to the point where he was playing for the Under-16 Israel national team at the age of 15.

He started searching the web for schools in the U.S. that took international students and where he could play sports. Egor's offense, given a newfound dedication to the game, was starting to catch up to his rebounding.

Sagemont School in Weston, Fla., a small Class 1A private school for for students pre-K through 12, popped up on searches.

"I've been asked a lot how we found Egor," former Sagemont coach Adam Ross said. "Actually, Egor found us."

Sagemont had produced dozens of D-1 players, including Will Sheehey at Indiana and Fab Melo at Syracuse. The Lions were defending state champions. Ross opened some of the files of highlights that Koulechov sent his way — "Nothing really memorable," Ross said — and read follow-up emails and listened to the voice messages from overseas. The kid was persistent.

Koulechov was underage and undersized, but became a star for his national team.

"He'd written me this long email about being on the national team and how he aspired to be a professional player," Ross said. "If I say I got 100 of those a year I'd probably be undershooting. Mostly those messages came in and guys moved on to someone else, but Egor wrote more, called more and even reached out to our admissions person."

Koulechov arrived in the fall of 2011 and began his Americanization.

At first, it was kind of daunting.

"I was really, really scared. Like, 'Wow, this is America. This is high school basketball,' " Koulechov said. "And then, after I started playing, I began to realize that every team had one, maybe two really good players. The rest were doing it for fun."

Added Ross: "We had an open gym the very first week and it was clear he could play. He was a 16-year-old kid with a lot to work on, but his toughness and ability to pursue the ball for rebounds just jumped out at you. He was rebounding over guys who were five and six inches taller."

One of them was a 6-10 center from Senegal who spoke no English. He was from a third-world country and had nothing in common with Koulechov besides being foreigners. He and Koulechov became best friends, which told Ross everything he needed know about Egor the person.

It wasn't long before college coaches were coming to see Egor the player.

AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY

For his two seasons at Sagemont, Koulechov was good for about 17 points and 10 rebounds a game. As a senior, the team lost in the state semifinals, but not before the likes of Maryland, Providence and Richmond came calling. Of the state schools, only Florida Atlantic and Florida International showed interest, but Koulechev made up his mind he wanted to see more of America.

Meeting Scott Pera gave him the chance.

Pera was an assistant to Herb Sendek at Arizona State. He'd been through Sagemont on recruiting trips before and got a tip from Ross about this new Russian kid. The two immediately clicked. When Koulechov took a visit to Tempe he was floored. Sagemont was a school of about 800 students. His graduating class had 61. ASU's enrollment was nearly 70,000 and the Sun Devils played in the Pac-12.

"Seeing all that for the first time was insane," Koulechov said.

He was only a junior, yet committed a couple days after his trip west and stayed committed even after Pera took an assistant's post at Penn to be closer to his family and hometown of Hershey, Pa.

Their paths would cross again.

As a freshman at ASU, Koulechov played in 27 games, with seven starts, and averaged 3.7 points, 2.8 rebounds and nearly 44 percent from the 3-point line. The Sun Devils went 21-12 and made the NCAA Tournament, losing on a buzzer-beater to Texas in the opening round. By that time, though, Koulechov's role had been reduced to next to nothing. He didn't even play in the postseason.

The Arizona State bench, with freshman Egor Koulechov sitting upright in the middle, reacts after Texas center Cameron Ridley's stickback at the buzzer knocked the Sun Devils out of the 2014 NCAA Tournament.

Koulechov started exploring his transfer options. Pera had since taken a job as an assistant at Rice. It was much smaller than Arizona State, around 3,500 undergraduates, but Koulechov had a built-in comfort zone with Pera.

"We both kind of looked at it like it was meant to be," Pera said.

After sitting out the 2014-15 season per transfer rules, Koulechov started every game at Rice and finished sixth in C-USA in scoring at 16.7 points per game and led his team with 7.0 rebounds. The Owls went 12-20 and tied for ninth in the league.

Koulechev, clearly, had one side of the court down. What impressed Pera was how his player made a commitment to upgrade his game on the defensive end.

"Any time you have a guy who can shoot the ball like that there will be a place to play a significant role, but Egor wasn't satisfied with just being a great shooter," Pera said. "We spent a lot of time working on his defense; not to be a serviceable defender, but a much better one. We made it important to him. He made it important to himself. Going into last season, I knew we had a chance to have a pretty good team."

The '16-17 Owls went 23-11, but settled for a berth in the College Basketball Invitational. Koulechov was named first-team all-conference and was the only player in C-USA to average a double-double (18.6 ppg, 10.1 rpg) in league play. Six times he scored at least 25 points, including a career-high of 35 when he went 6-for-6 from deep in a win over Incarnate Word.

Koulechov was the only player in All Conference-USA forward during 2016-17 to average a double-double in league play.

Yet, there was something missing. Late in the season, Koulechov thought about heading back to Israel (or somewhere in Europe) to play professionally.

But with a degree in sports administration in hand, the grad transfer door opened.

"As much as I loved being there, as much as I loved my teammates and the staff, it was time for a change," he said.

Making the decision all the more difficult was that Rice coach Rick Rhodes left to become head coach at Virginia Commonwealth and Pera was promoted to head coach. Koulechov said it was one of the most difficult conversations he'd ever had with anybody.

"I'm going to rank it up there pretty high with my mine, too," Pera said.

With his one season of eligibility remaining, Koulechov craved the big college basketball stage and didn't think he'd get that experience in another season at Rice, a program with four all-time NCAA berths and none since 1970. Pera didn't agree and made some points of his own, but the decision was made. Pera took it hard, but understood.

The two sides parted ways amiably.

"I love the kid. Everybody at Rice loves him. He left his mark here," Pera said. "I get the SEC Network. I'll follow every game the Gators play."

ONE LAST STOP

Koulechov was close to choosing Oklahoma as his transfer destination. One of his former ASU assistants had gone to work there, plus Koulechov felt an instant connection with Sooners coach Lon Kruger. OU had the edge, but things changed when Koulechov took his official visit to UF.

"I was back in the state of Florida," he said. "It just felt right."

Koulechov did his diligence, even talking to Barry and hearing praise about Barry's grad-transfer experience.

Meanwhile, UF's players did some homework, too.

"We'd never heard of him, but when I looked him up and saw he shot like 47 from 3, I was good that with that — more points for us, more assists for me," Chiozza said. "We also know these coaches, and know they're not going to bring in anyone who's going to harm our team or hurt our chemistry."

Instead, Koulechov has blended right in. He shares an apartment with Chiozza, fifth-year center John Egbunu and junior guard Jalen Hudson, a transfer from Virginia Tech and the player Koulechov will be battling most for playing time at the small forward position. By all accounts, the four are getting along fabulously.

Now, they need to do so on the court.

Koulechov and the Gators officially tip off fall practice Thursday.

Koulechov already has accepted that his role is certain to change, relative to minutes on the floor.

"It's one of the sacrifices you have to make going to bigger a program, being on an established team with better players," Koulechov said. "It's my job to fit in."

The proper mental approach is there. Ditto a work ethic. Koulechov has drawn terrific reviews from individual instruction sessions, including one day when, according to managers (and White), he hit 43 consecutive 3-point shots rotating the perimeter.

Koulechov, expected to go by the nickname "3gor" (courtesy of the Rowdy Reptiles), was asked to confirm those 43 straight makes.

"Yes," he said. "I believe it was 44, actually."

So, how will his all-around game transfer to the SEC?

"I don't know," Pera said. "What I do know is that he has an elite skill when it comes to shooting the ball. It doesn't matter what league he's in, you better not leave him open."

Better be ready for dogfights on the glass, too.

"He's going to bring a toughness that will help us," May said. "Egor has a high basketball IQ, also."

And so much experieience. Aside from 94 career Division-I starts, this summer Koulechov was back with the Israeli national team representing his country at the World University Games. In eight games, he averaged 15.1 points and 4.7 rebounds.

He also has a leadership chip his new teammates have seen in summer workouts and practice sessions. Maybe it's a byproduct of mandatory obligations with the Israeli military. Maybe it's just because he's a ferocious competitor.

"Maybe he'll be like Pau Gasol and yell at us in different languages," Chiozza said with a smile. "We'll know what he's saying, but no one else will."

Or maybe he'll just be really, really good.

Time for Mike White and the Gators to go watch him play. For real.

"I'm very glad to be here," Koulechov said. "And very excited for what comes next."

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'3gor' Koulechov: International Man (And Gator) of Mystery

Players Mentioned

Canyon Barry

Chris Chiozza

John Egbunu

Jalen Hudson

Egor Koulechov

Devin Robinson

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'3gor' Koulechov: International Man (And Gator) of Mystery

Players Mentioned

Canyon Barry

Chris Chiozza

John Egbunu

Jalen Hudson

Egor Koulechov

Devin Robinson

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