MORGANTOWN — WVU’s showdown against Texas on Jan. 20 could turn into a block party.
Literally.
The 2 p.m. game against the Longhorns (11-6, 2-3 Big 12) features the conference’s top shot blockers in Texas’ Mohamed Bamba and WVU’s Sagaba Konate.
And it may turn into one heck of a show.
“I was just trying to make a big play,” Konate said after the Mountaineers’ 71-66 loss against Kansas on Jan. 15, a game in which he had five intimidating blocks in the first half. “Even if the offense wasn’t there, the defense still was.”
Konate’s blocks of Kansas’ Svi Mykhailiuk and Marcus Garrett were enough to fill his own highlight video — “Oh, it’s blocked by Konate again!” ESPN announcer Bob Wischusen screamed after Konate’s block of Garrett.
For good measure, Konate added two goaltending calls.
“The first one wasn’t goaltending,” he said.
Then there is the 6-foot-11 Bamba, a five-star freshman NBA prospect from Harlem, N.Y. with the 7-foot-9 wingspan. While Konate, who scores 9.3 points per game and is second in the Big 12 averaging 3.1 blocks per game, is in the midst of getting his name out on the national stage, Bamba has already been there for a while and he’s an interesting figure.
Most NBA scouts have Bamba projected as a lottery pick in the 2018 draft, and he’s answered the bell in his first season with the Longhorns, averaging 11.8 points and 10.4 rebounds, while also leading the Big 12 with 4.4 blocks per game.
But he is also a young man who seriously considered Harvard, before signing with Texas, always introduces himself as if no one knows who he is and he regularly attends sports analytics conventions to help him further his understanding of the relationship between sports and numbers.
“I think there is a lot of depth with him and the first thing to know is that Mo is really good with people,” Texas coach Shaka Smart said. “He has a very high emotional intelligence. He’s very aware of how people perceive him when he’s talking to someone. He’s high-level with that. He has a way of impacting people and when you talk to him, you want to learn more about him.”
Before this season began, Bamba also had to go through an unfortunate situation involving the NCAA and his half brother, Ibrahim Johnson, who posted a video on Facebook this summer stating Bamba received illegal benefits from a family friend.
The NCAA investigated and cleared Bamba, who said during Big 12 media day that he was out to make blocking shots a fashionable thing again.
“I don’t know why people don’t pay more attention to blocks,” Bamba said. “If you think about it, most blocks go out of bounds and the other team still gets to keep the ball. One thing I really worked on in high school, and now in college, is to learn how to manipulate blocks to where we can keep the ball. Those things can lead to easy baskets and easy baskets can win a game.”
Not that he doesn’t enjoy sending an opposing shot into the stands once in a while.
“Intimidation can play a big part sometimes,” Bamba said. “Sometimes you have to just send one as far as you can.”
With a 7-foot-9 wingspan, that can be easy to do. No. 6 WVU (15-3, 4-2) was upset with itself that it didn’t go inside more against Kansas.
With Konate and Bamba manning the inside, both teams may have trouble getting many good shots in the paint.
“He can really block shots,” Smart said of Bamba. “There can be times when Mo goes to block a shot and he takes himself completely out of the play.
“You want to change as many shots as you can, but the goal on defense is still stop the other team from scoring, so sometimes it’s about him being more in the right position.”
