Marcus Fizer (above, right) scoring 18 and pulling down 12 rebounds for Maccabi Tel Aviv Elite against the Knicks Thursday night brings to mind an unlikely (if not totally inaccurate) way of pursuing eventual Eurobasket stardom. To wit, the NBDL’s Austin Toros are holding open tryouts today and tomorrow at St. Edward’s University, just a stone’s throw from CSTB HQ.

The $150 registration fee is no big deal. If you’re signed by the Toros, you’ll recoup that amount by the midseason mark.

In other local bush league sports news, Austin’s entry into the Arena Football League, the financial troubled Wranglers, received permission a few days ago to move the franchise to the lower budget AFL2. Clearly, the association with Deion Sanders has done wonders to raise the club’s profile — until a few days ago, most readers of the Statesman sports page would’ve figured “the minor league of Arena Football” to be somewhat redundant.

Completing this irregular roundup of Austin’s not-quite-ready-for-prime-time teams (sorry, Deion), the Ice Bats split a pair of preseason games with Laredo this week, with a final tune up for the 2007-08 CHL campaign taking place tonight at the super-dinky luxurious Chaparral Ice Arena. Just because the Ice Bats’ website is down is no reasons to suspect the game isn’t taking place.