LUANDA (AfroBasket/FIBA Basketball World Cup) - A team like Senegal with a lot foreign-based talents is taking home players and coaching staff very seriously.
Senegal is one of the few African countries – along Nigeria – gifted with players in major worldwide leagues like the NBA, Spain’s ACB, France’s LNB and the Greek league.
In August, they secured one of three places on offer for African teams for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup to be staged in Spain.
But what made Senegal unique was the unusual high presence of home-based players.
Mamadou Ndoye, Mohamed Diop, Ibrahima Mbengue and Pape Malick Gadiag, all played a key role in the team’s success in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
Head coach Cheikh Sarr is also a home-based element.
He served as an assistant in the past two AfroBasket tournaments, but when the country’s Basketball Federation called him to replace Frenchman Alain Weisz, he was confident that he knew how to improve Senegal’s rankings.
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