How Lemoyne-owen’s Anderson helped to get Cisse to Memphis
Moussa Cisse is finally here. Or he’s staying here. For one season, at least. Maybe. If there’s a season at all.
The near 7-footer from Lausanne committed to play basketball at the University of Memphis Wednesday afternoon, and many Tiger basketball fans could finally celebrate. They couldn’t have been thinking, however, that the six weeks they waited for this decision were but a fraction of the time and effort it took to usher a West African
native to a moment like this one.
It took the better part of a decade. It took two high schools, two cities and two continents. It took a Division II basketball coach from Memphis being introduced to an NBA executive by Amar’e Stoudemire in Africa.
It’s quite a story. A story that involves a lot more people than just Lemoyne-owen men’s basketball coach William Anderson. So it’s a story, especially now that the college team Cisse plans to play for is right across town from the college team Anderson coaches, that feels “a little bit different being that I’m his legal guardian,” Anderson said. “We have a very close relationship.”
The development everybody around the city began anticipating, or at least hoping for, really ever since Cisse suddenly showed up here from New York last summer, finally happened.
Coach Penny Hardaway finally got a five-star recruit after missing on several others during this recruiting cycle. The Tigers finally got an elite rim protector in their frontcourt to significantly enhance the potential of this year’s team. The program finally got some momentum to counter the pandemic, and the James Wiseman eligibility situation, and the looming NCAA infractions case, and Mike Miller’s departure.
It’s undeniably an important day for
the Tigers, and for their coach, who overtook LSU in the past month to secure Cisse’s commitment, according to recruiting experts. It’s undeniably a day for Tiger supporters to rejoice.
But in the midst of this excitement, and the prognostications about what this means for Memphis basketball, and the likelihood that Cisse’s recruitment and commitment to Memphis will be scrutinized by the NCAA, let’s also remember the 17-year-old who came to this country as an eighth-grader chasing a dream. Not just the potential one-and-done NBA prospect who Hardaway got to campus.
Cisse came here, in part, because the head coach at Lemoyne-owen was willing to take him in. It’s the best part of these international recruiting stories, the part that gets overlooked because the college basketball recruiting apparatus surrounding these prospects isn’t always what it seems.
It’s why 17 states and the District of Columbia sued to block the Trump administration from stripping foreign students of visas if their colleges move exclusively to virtual learning this school year. The circumstances these students often overcome to get to this country, and the leap of faith that usually goes along with that, provide needed perspective, particularly given the current challenges brought about by COVID-19.
In Cisse’s case, the tale of how he got from Africa to New York and then eventually Memphis began when Anderson went to Mali for an offseason program for African basketball players run by Stoudemire, the former NBA star.
Stoudemire became Anderson’s connection to Amadou Fall, a former Dallas Mavericks executive who founded the SEED Project (Sports for Education and Economic Development) in Senegal. Fall currently serves as the vice president of development for NBA Africa.
Anderson eventually developed a network of contacts in Africa through the program, and it allowed him to recruit several international players to Lemoyne-owen over the years.
Those same contacts at SEED reached out to Anderson to see if he would be willing to take in Cisse, from neighboring Guinea and then just an eighth-grader. Like many African basketball recruits, Cisse began his athletic career as a soccer player, according to Anderson. But he grew quickly and switched to training for basketball earlier than most prospects.
Anderson said he and his wife, who is a high school guidance counselor in Memphis, “just feel like part of our mission and part of what we do is help others to get to the next phase of life. We know that there’s so many young people out here who need families and people who have the means and are able to help them, if they can, because life is so complicated.”
“We weren’t really sure what Moussa was going to be,” Anderson added. “We felt he may have a chance.”
Though Anderson agreed to house
Cisse in Memphis after Cisse initially arrived in the United States, Cisse wound up pursuing an opportunity at New York City high school basketball powerhouse Christ the King.
But before last summer, that same network of African contacts reached out to Anderson again. They wanted to get Cisse to a school that would get him back on track academically.
“That’s why he came here,” Anderson said, “and of course we chose Lausanne.”
Cisse’s arrival in Memphis immediately thrust the Tigers and Hardaway into Cisse’s recruitment, and immediately brought on questions concerning whether Hardaway and Memphis had a role in moving Cisse to Memphis. There were parallels drawn to the way Wiseman moved to Memphis from Nashville to play for Hardaway at East High School.
But Cisse said in an interview last month that Memphis didn’t start pursuing him until he moved to Memphis.
“The way this happened, Memphis had no involvement,” Anderson said. “They didn’t even know he was coming, or was here, until everybody else did. We kept it hush hush about Moussa coming.”
Then Cisse came to town, moved in with Anderson’s family and stole the high school basketball headlines. He led Lausanne to a state championship and earned Mr. Basketball honors. By the time the season was over, rumors that he would reclassify to the 2020 recruiting class were rampant. He officially reclassified in May.
And now, on July 15, he became the third top-15 prospect in two years to commit to Memphis. Anderson said the moment feels like his own son graduating from high school, or going to the prom. It feels like the culmination of years of events that all those Memphis basketball fans reacting with glee are only now beginning to understand.
Cisse is finally here. Or he’s staying here. For one season, at least. Maybe. If there’s a season at all.
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto