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Capping off a family legacy

Youngest Vescovi makes biggest impression at UPJ

Isaac Vescovi walked on to the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown men’s basketball team after getting almost no attention from any collegiate programs following his senior season at Cambria Heights.

He’s graduating after earning a full scholarship and making the first team of the All-Pennsylvania State Athletic Western Division Men’s Basketball squad.

“He improved more than any player I’ve ever had in 30 years,” UPJ coach Bob Rukavina said. “He just worked on everything and each year he improved offensively. He was a guard coming out of high school, and we worked on post moves and his jump shot. He’s the most skilled guy I ever coached. He could do anything offensively.”

While going to UPJ was something that was pretty likely to happen for Isaac either way, all of his brothers also attended the school, it was never a given he was going to play basketball. His brother Ian, a junior on the team at the time, made a pitch to Rukavina.

“Ian came in, told me Isaac was coming to UPJ regardless, because all five brothers went to Pitt Johnstown,” Rukavina said. “I told him, ‘of course we’ll put him on the team,’ and we redshirted him the first year just like with Ian.”

Vescovi’s redshirt freshman year he played in just 13 games as Ian closed out his career by going over the 1,000-career points mark.

“We played less than 15 minutes together,” Isaac Vescovi said. “I was still pretty young and had just walked onto the team. We practiced together. I remember me and Ian were on separate teams, and we both scored six or eight in a row in a scrimmage. It got everyone’s attention. It was kind of cool we had a shoot-off there in practice.”

Vescovi became the third of his brothers to play basketball for UPJ following Ian and an older brother, Ben.

“I didn’t even know how much I was going to play,” Isaac Vescovi said. “My sophomore year, things really got going.”

After bulking up, Vescovi put his freshman year, when he averaged just 1.8 points and 1.3 rebounds, behind him.

“He was still real thin as a freshman, but then the next summer he put on 25 pounds of muscle,” Rukavina said. “One of our assistant coaches suggested we play him at the four, and we go to practice and he out-played everyone and became a starter his third year in the program.”

He went on to start all 29 games that season and averaged 11.7 points per game while dishing out 65 assists.

That season Vescovi earned his scholarship, but he continued to improve.

As a junior, he scored 15.5 points per game, had 74 assists and pulled down 4.6 rebounds per game.

“Just goes to show you when you have a work ethic what you can accomplish,” Rukavina said. “Basketball is the ultimate game of skill. If you work to get better, you will get better. He’s a shining example of that.”

Isaac Vescovi, like his brother Ian, excelled in the classroom. As a secondary math education major, he carries a 3.99 GPA.

“It’s a lot of work, because you spend hours every day doing math, it’s tough,” Vescovi said. “Academics is the harder work, because I look forward to basketball.”

That love for basketball may lead to even more time on the court. Vescovi student taught at Richland last summer, but he’s considering putting off his teaching career now that agents have been calling him to express their interest getting him a professional contract in Europe.

“He’s the complete package,” Rukavina said. “His brother was a 4.0 student just like him, and he has a great family that are super supporters of our program. I tell my whole team to use him as an example. You always talk about putting the work in and getting better, and you can’t get a more perfect example of someone who really did it than him.”

Another of Vescovi’s brothers, Dom, is the current Forest Hills boys basketball coach. Ben Vescovi is a former Huntingdon girls varsity coach, and coaching is certainly something that interests Isaac.

“We probably had over 100 plays we ran under Coach Rukavina,” Vescovi said. “I wanted to write them down so I don’t forget.”

This past season Isaac played the best basketball of his life, averaging 20.9 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. He was named the PSAC West Player of the Week twice and finished his career with 1,394 points to rank 12th all-time at UPJ.

“It’s like a dream,” Vescovi said. “Something I didn’t think I could do when I walked on as a freshman.”

Vescovi believes his legacy will live on through his leadership that he provided through his hard work in practice and the offseason, but Rukavina had something even more special in mind.

“The Vescovi cut will live on,” Rukavina said. “Isaac could get layups with one cut. He moved without the ball better than anyone we ever have had. Anytime someone makes a great cut to the basket, we always called it the Vescovi cut and will call it that as long as I am the coach.”

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