This new Providence-based basketball team hopes to play in 2021

JOHNSTON — The basketball being played at the Johnston Recreation Center didn’t look like anything but a high-level pickup game you might be able to find on any court across the state.

But this was more than just basketball you play for bragging rights and entertainment. Coaches were observing the 15 players who were coming on and off the court in shifts during a 5-on-5 scrimmage, shouting instruction on how pulling up for deep 3s wasn’t going to help them get evaluated properly.

Players wore different uniforms, but there were no winners or losers in this game. They were all chasing a dream.

A dream that Sercan Fenerci hopes to help them achieve.

Fenerci is a native of Turkey, a long-time high school and college basketball coach who is the athletic director at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. He had big dreams for basketball and last summer achieved them when he became owner, CEO and president of the Providence Pirates, a basketball team that will play in the ABA.

“It’s very diverse, it’s nationwide and there’s a lot of teams — about 20 plus in our region, the Northeast,” Fenerci said. “I started the team last September but I never talked about it. I wanted to do research and finally we started getting on board in the summer, started hiring people and those things.”

The ABA has been in Rhode Island before when Giovanni Feroce owned the Providence Sky Chiefs in 2015 before their demise in January of 2017.

“I have a different business plan. They went nationwide to find players and that’s not my plan,” Fenerci says. “I’m not looking to fly guys in from California, Texas or overseas to play. I’m looking for players from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut and make it a local product.”

That’s who was on the court at the Johnston Rec Center on Saturday.

One of those players was Isaac Medeiros, a 27-year-old former All-Stater from Johnston.

His path after high school took him to CCRI, then Roberts Wesleyan College, a Division II school in New York. After college, he hoped to sign to play overseas, but his father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease so Medeiros stayed home to help take care of him.

Over the winter, Medeiros decided to give pro basketball one last chance. He got himself back in shape and went to Las Vegas for the EuroBasketball combine, where he was ranked 17th out of 108 players. Then, just as he thought he had a chance to finally sign a contract, COVID hit.

On Saturday, Medeiros looked like one of the best players on the court. After the scrimmage, Fenerci stressed to the players that the Pirates weren’t a place where you could make millions, but it would give you a bridge to potentially reach a level where you could make a living.

That’s what Medeiros was looking for.

“I’m at that stage in my life where I hope I can get an opportunity and I’m chasing it,” Medeiros says. “I’m at a point where my game is the best it’s ever been. I hope I can get an opportunity where I can make some money from it. … If not, it is what it is.”

Will Leviton was also chasing the dream.

If the name sounds familiar, it should. Leviton played at Classical High School, but earned notoriety as the team manager-turned-player for the University of Rhode Island men’s basketball team.

His sideline celebrations during the NCAA Tournament made him a face of March Madness, but earning a scholarship as a senior was the thing Leviton was really proud of. Now, he wants to do more with basketball.

“I’m not done yet,” Leviton says. “I’ve been staying ready. I’ve always been training and I’ll be that way forever. When the opportunity here presented itself, I said why not.”

Leviton looked like he was playing a different game than the other players on the court on Saturday. While he was the smallest, he was noticeably quicker and more comfortable with the ball in his hands.

Since graduating from URI, Leviton has been working on his game and getting paid for helping other players — from pros to elementary school students — work on theirs. He’s starting a job as a youth counselor for the John Hope Settlement House, but it doesn’t mean he’s giving up on his dream of playing pro ball. He knows what playing for the Pirates could do.

“Obviously I was a walk-on [at URI] … and I really didn’t get the time I would have loved to get from URI. I didn’t get the time I wanted at Classical,” Leviton says. “Now I have experience and this can just open doors for me.

“Like [Fenerci] said, this is a bridge. It’s not necessary for me to make millions of dollars in the NBA. This is a bridge to professional basketball and I hope to establish myself everywhere.”

There’s a lot of things that have to happen for the Pirates to be successful.

For one, COVID-19 has made it increasingly difficult to find gyms to host actual games. Fenerci could play them at rec centers — where restrictions aren’t as tight as they would be at local colleges or high schools — but doesn’t want to lose potential ticket sales.

Fenerci needs sales to help pay for expenses, like players. He said players would be paid anywhere from $50 a game to maybe $500. It all depends on the player and the situation, but to do that the owner needs fans and sponsors to offset costs.

The hope is that play could start in January, but that will also come down to the state’s COVID regulations.

Fenerci is patient. He knows before he can worry about games, he needs to worry about putting together a team. Saturday was the first tryout and he has another planned around Thanksgiving.

“We are getting ready. We’re getting by day by day,” he says. “We want to play in January; that’s our plan. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, we’ll see when the time comes.”

Fenerci is invested both emotionally and financially. He wouldn’t give an exact figure, but said it wasn’t enough that he would lose his house.

He doesn’t seem worried about it. It’s his dream and he’s taking care of it.

“This is a stop,” he says. “For me, I’m not chasing it. I want to grow it. I want to grow the Pirates to a different level.”