(photo: www.sensports.com)
Former role players like Malick Badiane (D-League,USA), Bamba Fall (College, USA), Mouhammed Faye (College, USA), Saer Sene (New York Knicks, USA), Cheikh Samb (D-League, USA) and Mamadou Boumy Seck (College,USA) should provide youth, height and some international experience and should be eager to prove that they are capable to do bigger things for Senegal.
National-team head coach Abdourahmane N’Diaye and his staff are in favor of a preparation that combines a stage in France (Possibly starting the 22nd of April) and later a stage in Dakar before departing to Bamako. But nothing has been decided yet and talks with the heads of Senegalese basketball and sports has been postponed but will be held soon to discuss these important matters to create professional conditions for the national team to prepare properly.
So, it has to be seen how fast decisions will be carried out and how early N’Diaye can tell his players where to group to avoid last-minute plan-changes like it happened in the past years so often. He himself faces problems too due to his commitment as a head-coach of the women’s team of Villeurbanne (France) as the team could be ending their season exactly two days after the start of the zonal qualifiers…
Only one free spot for the Zone 2 is left as Cape Verde being already qualified for Libya and with Mali playing in front of a home-crowd who can relay on many foreign-based players, the task of booking the tickets to the African Championships does look quite moody for the Lions, and only a good outing in Mali and later in Libya can satisfy basketball-fans of Senegal this year as everything else would be a true disaster for the East African basketball-nation.