Standing at a towering 2.1m-tall and the all-round skill on the court to compete with the best in the world, Senegal teenager Baye Fall is poised to light up the US basketball scene.
Leaving his homeland in 2019, Fall took up a scholarship in Denver at Lutheran High School to complete his education. At 16-years-old, the talk among pundits is that Fall is future NBA material.
“One college scout said the consensus is, ‘Baye may not see a college court,’ considering the NBA is talking about likely changing their policy to allow players to declare right out of high school in 2022,” Lutheran head coach Bill Brandsma was quoted as saying on denverpost.com.
“He came here skilled, and scouts are seeing his ultimate potential… He’s 6-foot-11 but jumps like he’s 6-2 and moves like he’s 6-6.”
Fall, meanwhile, said he does not plan to play professionally just yet.
“Most people think I’m just here for basketball — no, I’m here to study. I’ve only been playing basketball since the sixth grade. Back home, everyone plays soccer, and I was a pretty good goalkeeper for a long time growing up.
“There’s a lot of opportunities coming — scholarships and everything — but I’m not trying to use basketball to be someone in life. I’m doing it for fun for now because I don’t know where the game is going to take me. I’m focusing on my studies and hopefully, that will lead me to something great one day.”
Fall has only been playing the game for three years, since taking it up at age 13 in Dakar.
Fall has already attracted interest from a number of universities including Minnesota and Arizona State.
The cousin of Fall, Mamadou Sow is in a similar boat as he has also made the move from Dakar to complete his schooling at Lutheran. The two players live together and know each other’s game extensively. Sow said of his teammate:
“He’s talented, he’s tall, he makes you respect the boards and his dunks,” Sow said.
“He thinks about basketball every morning when he wakes up at 5:30 to start getting ready for school. (Along) with his skill, that tells me he is going to do something great in this game.”
In partnership with ANA and Sports Leo
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