It’s no easy chore for BYU basketball players to escape the program’s soaring expectations, which, like the morning sun, seem to rise brighter each day. Whether it’s Joe Lunardi’s projection as a No. 2 seed for next year’s NCAA Tournament or CBS Sports ranking BYU No. 5 in its preseason poll, the Cougars are hot and getting hotter.
To get out of the heat, Keba Keita and Khadim Mboup are going to a place that’s even hotter — but for a very cool reason. No one in Senegal or Mali is spending the summer worrying about whether BYU can reach the Final Four. They have weightier issues and fellow countrymen Keita and Mboup are returning home to lighten their load.
A trio of Cougars, including former BYU player Mawot Mag, are joining forces with other college players, including Ibi Traore (Utah) and Malick Diallo (TCU) at next month’s Africa Elite Basketball Camps. The first camp will be in Mboup’s country of Senegal (June 3-4) with the second one set for Mali (June 7-8), where Keita and former Cougar Fousseyni Traore are from.
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“Those boys come back and give back at these (basketball) camps,” Utah businessman Carlos Iglesias told the “Y’s Guys” podcast recently. Iglesias supports the camps for Mike Clayton, who formed the non-profit Mali Wellness Foundation in 2016. “Even the schoolteachers and staff look at these young men and how they have really grown up with their opportunities.”
The initial goodwill missions by the foundation provided Mali with medical and dental services and health education. They also built their first basketball court. Iglesias and his team mixed the cement by hand using shovels and sticks.
“Having kids come to those courts to play basketball gives them a reason to come to school,” Iglesias said. “Most of these courts are at school and school isn’t necessarily mandatory for them. We have to do something to keep these kids in school — so, why not sports?”
In time, those attending the camps, like Keita, Traore and Mboup, earned opportunities to come to the United States to attend high school, play basketball and earn a college degree. Iglesias and his wife Kari are Keita’s American parents. They also assist other players who come to the U.S. through the foundation.
“We do this to help these young men have a future,” Iglesias said. “Their parents are giving up these children for the future of their families and their villages and communities and we are seeing the fruits of our labor that we started in 2016 — to have college graduates start giving back to their communities.”
For Iglesias, as a volunteer board member, his motivation to assist in Mali and Senegal stems from his own childhood, where he was raised by his valiant mother, a Guatemalan immigrant, in the inner-city neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
“We struggled. It’s not a good thing,” he said. “I have always said, ‘If there was a way that I could give back one day, if I could just make enough money to make ends meet, I’m going to try to help people.’
“There is nothing better that touches the human heart than serving others. I don’t care how many problems you have, there are other people dealing with way more.”
There is no guarantee that the Cougars’ preseason hype won’t follow Keita and Mboup halfway around the world and they might even get asked a question or two about the globe’s top recruit AJ Dybantsa.
This is indeed a different time for BYU basketball and for two weeks in June, these two Cougars are pausing on the present to go back in time to inspire the future — mentoring starstruck kids who will stand and shoot at the same baskets where they used to play before someone came to help them.
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.
If you would like to support the Africa Elite Basketball Camps, please go to maliwellnessfoundation.org and scroll to sports.
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