Colbey Ross (born October 22, 1998) is an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player for

Derthona Basket Derthona Basket, known for sponsorship reasons as Bertram Derthona Tortona, is an Italian professional basketball team of the city of Tortona, in the province of Alessandria, Piedmont. The team has achieved the promotion to the Lega Basket Ser ...

of the Italian LBA. He played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

for the

Pepperdine Waves The Pepperdine Waves are the athletics teams of Pepperdine University, located outside the city of Malibu, California. They compete at the Division I level of the NCAA. The school is a member of the West Coast Conference for the majority of its ...

High school career

Ross played four years of varsity basketball for

Eaglecrest High School Eaglecrest High School is a public high school located in unincorporated Arapahoe County, Colorado, near the cities of Aurora and Centennial. Eaglecrest was the fourth high school to open in the Cherry Creek School District, and it is a member o ...

Centennial, Colorado Centennial is a home rule municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,418 at the 2020 United States Census, making Centennial the 11th most populous municipality in Colorado. Centennial is a par ...

. As a junior, he averaged 18.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game, leading his team to the Class 5A state title game. Ross was named Colorado

Gatorade Player of the Year The Gatorade Player of the Year awards are given annually to up and coming high school student-athletes in the United States. They are given for boys' baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine playe ...

and was the only junior selected to play in the state's High School All-Star Game. As a senior, he averaged 18.4 points, 5.0 assists, 4.9 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game, helping Eaglecrest win the Class 5A state championship and earning

most valuable player In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

of the state tournament. Ross was recognized as Mr. Colorado Basketball and repeated as Colorado Gatorade Player of the Year. He was lightly recruited by

programs and committed to

Pepperdine Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and ...

over two other

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

scholarship offers, from

Northern Colorado Northern Colorado is the name for a region in the state of Colorado and a proposed state in the northeastern portion of Colorado. Region Northern Colorado is a region in the northern portion of Colorado. It borders northwestern Colorado, nort ...

and

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

College career

On November 20, 2017, in his fourth college game at Pepperdine, Ross scored a freshman season-high 25 points and added five rebounds and four assists in a 92–84 loss to

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

at the Legends Classic. On January 18, 2018, he scored 25 points for a second time, along with eight assists, in a 92–78 loss to

. As a freshman, Ross averaged 14 points, 5.6 assists and three rebounds per game, setting a school freshman record for total assists, with 179. He was named to the

West Coast Conference The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting of ...

(WCC) All-Freshman Team and was an All-WCC honorable mention selection. On December 31, 2018, as a sophomore, Ross posted 10 points and a career-high 13 assists in a 100–64 victory over

Alabama A&M Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (Alabama A&M) is a public historically black land-grant university in Normal, Huntsville, Alabama. Founded in 1875, it took its present name in 1969. AAMU is a member-school of the Thurgood Mars ...

. On March 2, 2019, he scored a season-high 36 points and reached 1,000 career points in a 73–72 loss to Pacific. Ross earned WCC All-Tournament Team honors after leading Pepperdine to the semifinals of the 2019 WCC tournament. He averaged 19.4 points, a WCC-high seven assists and 2.9 rebounds per game and was named to the first team All-WCC. Ross set single-season program records for total assists and assists per game. On November 19, 2019, as a junior, Ross recorded a then-career-high 38 points and six rebounds in a 91–84 loss to

USC USC most often refers to: * University of South Carolina, a public research university ** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses **South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program * University of ...

. On January 4, 2020, he tallied 24 points and 10 assists in a 75–70 loss to second-ranked Gonzaga. Ross posted 30 points, including 27 in the second half, along with a career-high 14 rebounds and five assists in a 66–59 victory over

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

on February 20. In an 89–82 double overtime loss to Saint Mary's during the 2020 WCC tournament quarterfinals, Ross scored a career-high 43 points, making seven three-pointers while adding eight rebounds and five assists. He was named to the WCC All-Tournament Team. In his junior season, Ross averaged 20.5 points, a WCC-high 7.2 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game and earned first-team All-WCC honors for his second time. He broke his own school single-season assists record and was the only Division I player to average at least 20 points and seven assists per game. After the season, Ross entered the

2020 NBA draft The 2020 NBA draft was held on November 18, 2020. The draft was originally scheduled to be held at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on June 25, but due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it was instead conducted at ESPN's facilities in Bristol, Connecti ...

, before withdrawing from the draft. Coming into his senior season, Ross was named to the Preseason All-WCC team. On November 27, 2020, he became Pepperdine's all-time leading scorer while scoring 33 points in a 107–98 triple overtime loss to

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. Ross scored his 2,000th career point in a loss to Gonzaga on January 30, 2021. He averaged 17.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 7.7 assists per game, leading the Waves to their first

College Basketball Invitational The College Basketball Invitational (CBI) is a men's college basketball tournament created in 2007 by The Gazelle Group. The inaugural tournament occurred after the conclusion of the 2007–08 men's college basketball regular season. The CBI s ...

Championship.

Professional career

On September 28, 2021, Ross signed with ERA Nymburk of the Czech National Basketball League. On July 20, 2022, he has signed with

Pallacanestro Varese Pallacanestro Varese, also called by its current sponsor's name, the Openjobmetis Varese, is an Italian professional basketball club based in Varese, Lombardy. Founded in 1945, the team plays in the Italian basketball league system, Italian first ...

of the

Lega Basket Serie A The Lega Basket Serie A (LBA) is a professional men's club basketball league that has been organised in Italy since 1920. Serie A is organised by Lega Basket, which is regulated by the Italian Basketball Federation (FIP). It is the highest-tier le ...

(LBA). On July 23, 2023, he signed with Budućnost VOLI of the

Prva A Liga The Prva A liga, for sponsorships reasons named the Erste Liga, is the top-tier professional basketball league in Montenegro. It is the highest basketball division organized by the Basketball Association of Montenegro (KSCG). It was established in ...

. On December 21, 2023, he signed with

of the Italian LBA.

Career statistics

College

, - , style="text-align:left;", 2017–18 , style="text-align:left;",

, 32 , , 32 , , 31.8 , , .465 , , .427 , , .820 , , 3.0 , , 5.6 , , 1.0 , , .2 , , 14.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2018–19 , style="text-align:left;",

, 34 , , 34 , , 34.9 , , .437 , , .396 , , .853 , , 2.9 , , 7.0 , , 1.2 , , .1 , , 19.4 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2019–20 , style="text-align:left;",

, 32 , , 32 , , 37.7 , , .402 , , .349 , , .854 , , 4.7 , , 7.2 , , 1.1 , , .2 , , 20.5 , - , style="text-align:left;",

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

, style="text-align:left;",

, 27 , , 27 , , 37.6 , , .436 , , .341 , , .846 , , 4.1 , , 7.7 , , 1.1 , , .3 , , 17.5 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 125 , , 125 , , 35.4 , , .431 , , .373 , , .847 , , 3.6 , , 6.8 , , 1.1 , , .2 , , 17.9

Personal life

Ross' older brother, Elijah, played basketball for Eaglecrest High School and won a state championship in 2013. He later played

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

basketball for UCCS, earning all-conference honors and becoming the program's all-time leader in assists. Ross' favorite NBA player is

Damian Lillard Damian Lamonte Ollie Lillard Sr. (born July 15, 1990) is an American professional basketball player for the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Weber State Wildcats and earned ...

References

External links

Pepperdine Waves bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, Colbey 1998 births Living people American expatriate basketball people in the Czech Republic American men's basketball players Basketball Nymburk players Basketball players from Colorado Derthona Basket players KK Budućnost players Pallacanestro Varese players Pepperdine Waves men's basketball players Point guards Sportspeople from Aurora, Colorado