Kentucky coach Mark Pope has high hopes for Ousmane N’Diaye.
N’Diaye, a 6-foot-11 forward from Senegal, has officially signed an agreement to play for the Wildcats next season and is playing for Vanoli Cremona, which competes in a high-caliber league in the Liga Basket Serie A division.
N’Diaye is averaging 9.8 points and 6.8 rebounds per game in 28 games this season. N’Diaye, 22, is a finalist for the Liga Basket Serie A Best Under 22 award. Prior to Vanoli Cremona, N’Diaye played at several clubs in Spain including Baskonia, Granada, and Palencia. He began his career at Dragons Rhondorf in Germany.
Pope was impressed with N’Diaye in Italy earlier this year.
“The great news is he’s just a little bit taller than me, and when we did our standing reach comparison, I reached as high as I possibly could, and my fingers barely came to the bottom of the crease in his hand,” Pope said. “He’s long and he’s gonna be special here.”
Pope answered more questions on social media on Thursday, taking questions from fans on the X and Instagram platforms. He addressed a question concerning how his staff evaluates players who compete overseas.
“We go by film, we go by analytics, we go by league, especially how it incorporates the SEC, because there’s so many different levels of a league,” Pope said. “We evaluate age and trajectory. We have innumerable contacts in the states, in the NBA and in Euro league that we can go to for references to get feedback on players.
“And then, most importantly, when we can, we need to go see guys, especially those guys that were kind of, we’re not sure on laying eyes on the guys can be the difference maker.”
Pope added that the rumor that he flew overseas to see a player who had committed to another program.
“That’s not true,” he said in response to the question
5 Responses
He better be much better than advertised. Have you seen Arkansas roster? They have that 7'5" European who will be scary good in a year or two. They also have the number one recruiting class and two players who are testing the waters and might come back. They also have the leading scorer or Georgia who averaged almost 18 ppg against SEC competition. The last 2 years he has done better than Pope and it looks like that trend will continue this year. Also Tennessee is absolutely killing it in the portal. Alabama is locked and loaded and so far if the season started today we would have a 10-12 place SEC team. If you are ok with those standards then I'm glad for you. We have the deepest pockets in the SEC and have a lower middle tier type of team. If we dont sign at least two all star type players for next year the year will be over before it starts. Unless Kam Williams gets twice as good and Moreno improves alot. Wilkins is a toss up because he hasnt played against any competition. Diallo will be the star but how good is he really? If Chandler would have played out west for Washington I'm thinking he would have had similar stats. I just hope Pope can get the most out of this team. Thankfully if he fumbles this year we won't have to worry about his abysmal recruiting and stone cold non motivating face on the side lines anymore. It's up to him to keep his job. When coaches jobs are on the line they either sink or swim.
Pope said that about Trent Noah and you see where that got him.
Barry, im thinking Noah was with a lot of poison going on with last year group may have something to do with that and I could be wrong. He started out pretty good and just loss his confidence afterwards.
I think you are right 79, I hope he gets the chance to get that confidence back. He truly loves Kentucky and is a team first guy. Sometimes I wish he would be a little more selfish. It seems that Pope has focused on shoot first guys from the portal. I guess he has to take what he can get. I hope Moreno comes back, but I have a feeling we have seen him play his last game in a Kentucky uniform.
Brooks has just been reported to have Top 10 team in the Portal. Pope trying to put finishing touch on Bottom Ten and having difficulty with that. Who ever thought he would such a disaster 3 yrs ago?
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