Gonzaga big Filip Petrusev signs with Serbian team, won't return to school

Gonzaga big man Filip Petrusev won’t return to the Zags for his junior season. As first reported by Nova.rs — and later confirmed by Jeff Goodman of Stadium, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports and Jonathan Givony of ESPN (all Twitter links) — the native of Serbia is returning to his home country after agreeing to a multiyear deal with Mega Bemax.

Petrusev, who averaged 17.5 PPG and 7.9 RPG during a breakout sophomore season at Gonzaga, entered the 2020 NBA Draft pool in the spring. For now, his plan is to keep his name in this year’s draft, according to Givony, who had the 20-year-old ranked 70th overall on ESPN’s big board.

Now that his NCAA eligibility is no longer a concern, Petrusev won’t have to finalize that decision by the NCAA’s early entrant withdrawal deadline of Aug. 3. He can instead take until Oct. 6 (the NBA’s withdrawal deadline) to make up his mind.

Here’s more on the 2020 draft:

• After testing the draft waters, forward Isaiah Livers will head back to Michigan for his senior year, the school announced in a press release. “While it was a limited process due to COVID-19, I want to thank all the NBA teams who took the time to talk to me,” Livers said in a statement. “The information I gathered is going to be invaluable moving forward. But now, we have unfinished business in Ann Arbor.” Livers averaged 12.9 PPG and shot 40.2% from beyond the arc in 21 games (31.5 MPG) as a junior.
• Arizona State guard Alonzo Verge Jr. is returning to school for his senior season, according to an announcement from the program (video link). Verge, who transferred to the Sun Devils after starting his college career at Moberly Area Community College in Missouri, averaged 14.6 PPG, 3.5 RPG and 2.3 APG in 28 games (26.8 MPG) in 2019/20.
• Veteran player agent Jerome Stanley is joining Independent Sports & Entertainment, where he’ll co-represent his son, Duke prospect Cassius Stanley, per a Sports Business Journal report.
• Arizona forward Zeke Nnaji, a Minneapolis native, is interviewing with his hometown Timberwolves this week, tweets Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News.