The young Malian basketball player Adama Sanogo, 21, who has just won the American university basketball championship with his Connecticut Huskies team, was voted best foreign player of this championship. With his outstanding qualities, the young prodigy Adama seems to embody a world star who will have a very positive impact on Malian sport in general and Malian basketball in particular.
From his first weeks at Connecticut Huskies (UConn Huskies in English), Sanogo impressed, and took the place of Josh Carlton, the pivot holder, in the five majors. He becomes one of the favorites of the fans, who adore his fighting spirit, but also his velvet hands, he who has an offensive arsenal to make the best interiors in the country green.
In his first season, he helped his team win 25 games. During his second year on campus, he again raised his level of play, and was selected for the Big East team, one of the most competitive conferences in the United States. After a premature elimination during March Madness 2022, Sanogo returned to Bamako to see his family, recharge his batteries and organize a basketball camp.
During the current season, he explodes everything in his path. He was elected in the best five of his conference, and remains in the race to be voted the best pivot in the country. He is also the favorite to be named March Madness MVP, averaging 18 points, 11 rebounds and 3 assists per game since the start of the tournament, which UConn has been dominating head and shoulders. The major American media (ESPN, CBS Sports) talk about him, but the Malian hopeful wants the title of champion.
Statistically speaking, the 19.7 points and 10 rebounds per game he averaged during the Huskies’ flawless six-game NCAA Tournament streak is why he was named the Finals’ Most Outstanding Player. Oven. More than numbers, however, it was Sanogo’s intensity and passion that made him the foundation on which the 2023 national champions were built.
Born in Bamako on February 12, 2002, Adama Sanogo grew up in a modest environment with his sister and brother. Their parents, Cheick Na and Awa worked hard to support the family, and young Adama, a football lover, turned to basketball. It was then that he caught the eye of recruiters in 2016, during a camp organized by Cheick Diallo, the former NBA player who passed through the New Orleans Pelicans.
At the end of 2017, Sanogo, under the leadership of his mentor Tidiane Dramé, flew to the USA, to Centereach, about sixty kilometers from New York, to evolve at Our Savior New High School. American. That was the start of an explosion of talent that today requires the attention of Malian sports authorities.
Edjona Segbedji
