The two best college basketball options for Shiloh Robinson, who grew up in wintry Nebraska, were on opposite sides of the country: the University of San Francisco and Liberty University in Lynchburg.
Robinson decided on Liberty, in large part due to his Christian faith – but it didn’t hurt that Flames coach Richie McKay endured a snowstorm to visit Robinson (and his family) when he was in high school.
“I doubt that he will come to Nebraska again,” Robinson, 24, joked about McKay, the former associate head coach for Tony Bennett at Virginia, who drove about 2.5 hours from the airport in Omaha to see Robinson in Kearney, Nebraska.
After a rookie season of pro hoops in sunny Portugal in 2024-2025, Robinson is back in the snow belt – or at least the dreary, overcast grey that is in Poland in the late fall and winter. The big man is playing for Polonia, which is based in Warsaw and plays in the second-best league in Poland.
“The coach now, David Torrescusa, is from Spain, and he is familiar with my agent,” said the 6-foot-8 Robinson, whose agent is also from Spain. “A week after the (past) season ended, I got a phone call from the coach. I know that is super, super early. When a coach reaches out that early,” it’s a good sign.
Playing overseas means being able to adapt.
“There is a good bit of down time,” Robinson said. “That is one of the challenges overseas. Another one is, what you are going to do for meals.”
On the court, Robinson played in nine of the first 11 games and averaged 35.6 minutes, 17.3 points and a team-high 8.9 rebounds per contest.
The other American on the team, Jalen Sullinger, who played in college at Kent State, was averaging a team-best 26.7 points per outing in late November.
Robinson is one of at least four former Liberty players with teams in Poland this season. The other three are in the ORLEN league, the top circuit in the country: Lovell Cabill, who also played in ORLEN in 2023-2024; Tomasz Gielo, a 6-9 forward from Poland; and Jayvon Maughmer, who averaged 5.8 points per contest in his first six games for Zastal BC Zielona Gora.
Cabill had 12 points on Nov. 22 as his Gornik team won over MKS DG, which features former JMU all-CAA guard Ronald Curry.
Warsaw is about 120 miles west of the border with Ukraine, which endured a Russian military invasion in 2022. But Robinson is not overly concerned about his safety.
“No, not really. Poland does border Ukraine, but it was not a huge concern,” he said.
Robinson, as a graduate senior, played 31 games off the bench for Liberty in 2023-2024 and averaged 14.5 minutes and 5.0 points per contest.
Following his sophomore season of high school, Robinson broke a wrist and missed all his junior season.
But Liberty coach McKay kept in touch and showed interest in the big man.
“He called me, and we had some good conversations,” said Robinson. “San Francisco was probably too much at that time in my life. I visited Liberty with my parents, and I could feel in touch spiritually. That is obviously a big deal for me. Basketball-wise, I liked the way they ran their offense.”
Some of his former Liberty teammates are also playing overseas, including North Carolina native Daris McGhee in France. Former teammate Kyle Rode, now an assistant with the Flames, played in Germany and in the G League with San Antonio affiliate Austin after suiting up for Liberty from 2019-2024.
Notes
- Robinson had a 4.0 grade-point average in high school. He earned a bachelor’s degree in sport management and minor in psychology from Liberty in 2023, then began work on a master’s degree in sport management.
- He had eight points in just nine minutes of play in a win against Radford in 2019.
- Robinson’s brother, Joaquim, played football in college at Doane in Lincoln, Nebraska. They are from Kearney, which has a population of about 33,000 people.
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David Driver
