The Beginning of a New Era for Boy’s Basketball

With the loss of most of ICSA’s players from last year’s team, is the boy’s basketball team prepared this year?

Preparations for WAISAL

The team is training and conditioning tirelessly as ICSA’s high school basketball team has been impatiently waiting for the day ICSA will be attending a 3-day WAISAL (West African International Schools Athletics League) tournament in Dakar, Senegal, starting Jan. 31st.

Despite many concerns and worries, the players are putting their all into every practice. They want to prove all the doubters wrong and bring ICSA’s boys’ basketball team their first-ever golden trophy.

 “Obviously, we lost a lot of players but with our young players, Timi, Yohan, Vicente, and Mohamed, I feel like they are evolving in the right direction. I feel like once their bodies fully develop and they get more mature, I think they could be the best basketball team ICSA has ever seen,” says Pierce Nchinda, ICSA’s former team captain, when asked about his expectation for WAISAL.

New coach, New Wins?

With much speculation about last year’s coach leaving, ICSA has since acquired a new coach. Coach Ba, comes with a fresh new mindset as he tries to motivate the players. During the first practice of the year, the morale was down. As a former college hooper, he knows what he is talking about.

“We were lost and confused, a new coach coming in and implementing a new style of coaching we have never seen before. The first practice I took a look at him and I could already tell that this school year is going to be a hard one,”

Timi Bello, 10th Grade Point Guard

The Team’s Take

With loads of freshmen straight out of middle school, the team needed to be more mature in order to understand what the tournament represented.

Last year,  the team didn’t have the confidence to do what they wanted. In practice, some said that they looked like NBA prodigies, but the self-esteem wasn’t transferring onto the court.

Former captains Pierce Nchinda and Will Bloomer led the team in almost everything: points, rebounds, blocks, and steals.

In games, the team relied on Pierce, and let him do all the work. Not understanding how bad that was, the team didn’t look ahead to the next year as players were maturing.

This year, new players have added to the improvement of the team, and have the opportunity to be the stars of the team. With added confidence, who knows what ICSA could achieve this coming WAISAL?

Under-dogs, Is winning a Possibility?

With the loss of our former captain and center, there are some doubters. 

“Even when you guys had Pierce and Will you guys managed to come second place, how could you guys win when you lost both of them?” says Yohan Mala, 10th grade forward. 

It is a simple answer: ICSA’s young players have to step up.

Another problem the boy’s team will end up facing is not having a captain. “This is the first team I have ever seen that does not have a captain established yet,” says Coach Ba when asked how he expected them to win. 

Even though ICSA may be the underdogs for this upcoming WAISAL tournament, it doesn’t mean they can’t bring home a win. 

With the practices counting down, Coach Ba selected the 9 players he is taking to Dakar, Senegal, and Panthers basketball players are worried.  

“ I am not picking you based on your skill level, but I am choosing you based on how much you can fight through the pain,” Coach Ba says, after an upsetting defeat against Le Farandole Internationale.  He benched all of the starters due to their “weak game,” says Coach Ba. He has made it clear that time is short and there will be no more chances to show off your skills.

With how ICSA has been playing in their practice games, to team practices, the ICSA community is in good hands as WAISAL awaits. The community will just have to wait and see what possibilities await our new team.