Achile Spadone, a senior wing on the Bucknell men’s basketball team, is not afraid to test the limits of his comfort zone. Born and raised in Geneva, Switzerland, Achile (pronounced a-SHEEL) has been constantly adapting since the age of 10. Adapting to different sports, different cultures, different schools, different styles of basketball, and even to a more prominent role with the Bison since his arrival in the summer of 2024.
Basketball is not the among the most prominent sports in Switzerland. The landlocked, Alpine nation in central Europe is best known as both a winter sports hotbed and a producer of tennis stars such as Roger Federer, Martina Hingis, and Stan Wawrinka. There have been dozens of Swiss players in the NHL, but only six have ever made it to the NBA, most prominently Thabo Sefolosha and Clint Capela. For Achile, basketball came as something of a fallback option.
Hailing from the French-speaking region of Western Switzerland, Achile is the middle of three sons to Christophe and Heloise Spadone. Christophe was a semi-professional hockey player until the age of 28, and Achile’s youth sports career started with soccer, which is another popular sport in Switzerland. But by the age of 10, Achile tired of the sport – “I wasn’t that good at it anyway,” he admits – and that’s when he found basketball.
“I’m not sure how it came up, but I was looking for sports to play. In Switzerland, you start out playing in your home village, and then you progress to bigger clubs, and if you are good enough you could get selected to play with the national team.”
Indeed, Achile did become good enough to get into the Swiss National Team program. He captained the squad at the U16 and U18 levels, and in 2023 he was selected to the Senior National Team for the 2025 FIBA Eurobasket qualifiers.
With his basketball profile on the rise as a teenager, Achile decided to spread his wings and seek more competitive opportunities. After exploring clubs elsewhere in Europe, he eventually crossed the pond and came to the U.S. with his older brother, Elliot.
“Switzerland’s youth development is getting a lot better now, but at the time it was not great, and I also think it’s important to see other parts of the world. So I decided with my family that was going to leave Switzerland. At first I tried out in Spain and Italy, and I actually got a spot on a team in Span called Estudiantes. And I don’t know, maybe I was a little too young – I was still only 15 – and I told my dad I was not ready. So the solution we found was going to the States with my older brother, who also wanted to leave Switzerland for reasons not related to basketball.”
The Spadone brothers ended up at the Hoosac School in Upstate New York for a year. Elliot went on to grad school at LSU, and after returning home to play for a club in Switzerland, Achile came back to the States to do a prep year at basketball powerhouse St. Thomas More in Connecticut.
Achile admits that his year at St. Thomas More was a bit of a struggle, but he was adamant that he was a Division I-caliber player. He was looking for a good balance between academics and basketball, so when Davidson offered him a spot as a preferred walk-on, he jumped at the chance.
“I didn’t know much about how U.S. college basketball worked; high-major, mid-major, where the Atlantic 10 was situated and things like that. But I knew Steph [Curry] went to Davidson, and seeing the team play, I thought it was a level of competition that suited me. North Carolina seemed like a really nice place, and the academics are good there too.”
Achile spent two years playing for coach Matt McKillop and the Wildcats, and in those two seasons he got into 57 games primarily as a reserve guard. He shot a solid 36% from 3-point range and was an outstanding defender coming off the bench, but Achile felt like he was ready for an expanded role that might not be available at Davidson, so he opted to enter the transfer portal after his sophomore season.
By May of that year, Achile had narrowed his decision to Columbia and Bucknell, and ultimately Bucknell just clicked for him.
“I think at first it was the coaching staff. They are really energetic and they know so much about basketball. And then Bucknell just felt right. It felt similar to Davidson in terms of the community around the basketball program, a smaller college with a tight-knit community. The coaches were set on developing me as a player, and that’s something I really wanted. I’m just looking to improve day by day. At some programs, they fit you into a role and that’s all you’re going to do. At Bucknell, they are developing all parts of my game and preparing me for a professional basketball world, which is what I want to do.”
Achile made an immediate impact in his first season at Bucknell, at first playing 20-30 minutes off the bench and then quickly expanding into one of the Patriot League’s minutes leaders after wing Ian Motta suffered a season-ending knee injury just eight games into the season.
Achile was a steady, veteran presence on a team that would go on to claim a share of the Patriot League regular-season title. His breakout game was a 22-point performance in an overtime loss at Radford, and he surpassed the 20-point mark again with 21 in the Patriot League Tournament semifinals against Navy. He ended the season averaging 8.9 points and 4.5 rebounds per game while turning into one of the team’s top perimeter defenders. Head coach John Griffin III dubbed him the team’s “Swiss Army Knife” – pun intended.
Achile says that his confidence grew as the season progressed.
“I think I started off well, and then in the middle of the season had a little bit of a drop. But I was happy that I was able to pick it back up. The main goal was to find more of a groove offensively again – I had lost a little bit of that at Davidson – so overall I’m happy with how the year went. Confidence was a big thing, and it helped that the team was winning and we had a lot of guys who could score, so I didn’t have to force anything.”
This year’s squad will have a bit of a different look after the graduation of backcourt starters Josh Bascoe and Elvin Edmonds IV and the transfer of 2025 Patriot League Player of the Year Noah Williamson to Alabama. But optimism remains high thanks to an infusion of young talent and good leadership in the senior class, which includes Quin Berger, Ruot Bijiek, Josh Fulton, and Brady Muller, in addition to Achile.
“It’s just about sharing experiences. Your fourth year in college is so different from your first year in college. I’ve had the chance to play in so many big games, playoff games and trips to places like Kentucky, Maryland, Syracuse, and Gonzaga. You get a better feeling about what it takes to win, and so you’re just trying to relay that to other people. Everyone has their own uniqueness, but the main thing you’re trying to give is energy and experience.”
The Bison are coming off a productive exhibition game at Louisville, and the 2025-26 season starts for real on Monday night when Delaware comes to Sojka Pavilion for the opener. The non-conference schedule includes more high-majors in Pittsburgh, St. John’s, and Iowa, along with top-level mid-majors such as Princeton, Akron, and Mount St. Mary’s, which went to the NCAA Tournament last season.
Achile’s younger brother, Romeo, currently attends Chapman University in California, and his parents will get to the States for several weeks this winter to see both sons and catch some basketball games.
In the meantime, Achile is looking forward to leading the Bison back to the top of the Patriot League standings after they shared the regular-season title a year ago.
“I really like our group, because I think even though there are a lot of new guys, I don’t see one person that’s shy or scared. Everyone is working toward a common goal and giving their all at every practice. I think we’re doing a good job trying to make everyone fit in, and then the younger guys are doing a good job fitting in, if that makes sense. So everyone is on the same page. We have shooting, we have size, we have skills. I’m excited to see what we can do.”
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