Diarra makes name for himself
The basketball could get intense. Big brother, Mamadou Diarra and middle brother Hassan would be getting after it in their Queens neighborhood, while the youngest brother, Cherif, waited for his time..
“It was different. I used to sit on the sidelines and watch them play because they were always so good,” Cherif said. “That just gave me confidence to be better. It was very competitive and I just wanted to be like that.”
Eventually, Mamadou, the center, and Hassan, the point guard, got their little bro on the court, too. In the park or at the nearby Elmcor Youth Center, the brothers’ games grew together.
“The best part about it, none of us played the same,” Mamadou said. “We all played different positions, all played in different ways. It was fun, though, a lot of battles and wars. There was a lot of emotion with those two.”
Said Hassan: “Sometimes we’d have to force (Cherif ) to join, but there were battles. Him being small, he didn’t give up. Me being smaller than both of them, I didn’t give up. We competed, and that’s beneficial to where we are now.”
All three brothers went from New York to Putnam Science. Mamadou, 26, played for UConn before chronic knee injuries ended his career too soon. He’s now in his fourth season as the Huskies’ director of player development. Hassan, 23, transferred from Texas A&M to UConn and played an off-the-bench role on the national championship team. In his best game as a Husky, he scored 14 points with six assists and played shutdown defense against Marquette Feb. 17.
After his promising freshman season, Cherif, 21, was back in New Haven, watching on TV as his brothers were winning the national championship last April.
“I’m very motivated by that,” Cherif said. “They just won a championship, and I talk to them every day, ask them for advice. I want to be just like them.”
Now Cherif has become a mainstay at Southern Connecticut, doing the “dirty work,” he calls it, as his team gears for a postseason move in Division II.
“Cherif is an unsung hero for our team,” SCSU coach Scott Burrell said. “He does so much to help other guys become successful. He rebounds, he plays great defense, then he helps everybody else who struggles on defense. When they get beat, he’s there to block shots, take charges. He’s just a fierce competitor, a workhorse. Whatever you need to have done, he’ll do for you.”
Cherif, 6 feet 6, a sophomore, plays as an undersized
forward, starting and playing 29.6 minutes per game, averaging 8.7 points, 9.2 rebounds, 1.7 blocks for the Owls (17-9), who have conference games on the road at Franklin Pierce and Bentley to finish the regular season this weekend.
“I think Cherif ’s doing a good job,” said Hassan, who got to New Haven for a game this month. “He’s a very versatile player, he rebounds, very unselfish. He likes to get his teammates involved, and he’s aggressive. I like what he’s doing.”
Said Mamadou: “He’s grown a lot since he’s been (at Southern). He moves the ball around, plays basketball the right way. Rebounds, blocks shots, he can kind of do it all. I think he can be a little more aggressive offensively, though.”
Cherif ’s search for a college came during the pandemic, and he was in danger of falling through the recruiting cracks in 2021. Mamadou and UConn assistant coach Luke Murray recommended him to Burrell, the former UConn star and long-time NBA player, and it has proven to be ideal.
“Once I got on the phone with Coach Burrell, I just knew it was good energy,” Cherif said. “He asked me to visit and it was a perfect fit, close to home, close to UConn. Perfect. … We’re really well-bonded. We always push each other, we’re all ‘raspy,’ we want to be tough, physical.”
Cherif has proven his toughness, playing through aches, pains, illnesses to answer the bell for every game. That toughness and grit was handed down from Mamadou, 6-9, and Hassan, 6-2.
“Mamadou was always on top of us,” Cherif said. “He was tough, he would push me. ‘Don’t be lazy.’ We had to work hard, never let up, never give up. Hassan is confident, he’s always been confident. He knows what he wants, and I feel like I know what I want, too.”
Both Cherif and Hassan, to some degree, are carrying on for big bro.
“We all believed he was the star,” Cherif said. “Everybody looked up to him, everybody in the neighborhood. Being that he had to finish his career early, it pushed me to play for him and keep going, no matter what.”
Said Hassan: “We wear
that on the back of our shoulders. Without saying it, it’s in the back of our minds that he didn’t get to finish out his career, but (Cherif and I) are able to do so. We’re fortunate. He’s playing through us.”
Mamadou is still a role model. Cherif, a business major, is thinking about a post-playing career in the game like his oldest brother is building at UConn. Basketball, after all, is the Diarra’s family business.
“God had different plans for me,” Mamadou said. “It was tough at the time, but it’s been great, watching those two continue to grow while still being a part of it, it’s been everything, beautiful for me and my family.”
Azzi Fudd has the floor
One of the cool things about covering college sports is watching the young men and women grow into adults. Azzi Fudd, who would often be unsure of what to say, worried about saying the right things in UConn women’s basketball press conferences, was one of five students appearing in hearings before state legislators making the case for state funding. UConn has asked for an additional $47.3 million for 2025 to avoid making cuts.
Fudd, who later told Hearst CT that she was “very nervous,” told the Appropriations Committee that she will graduate in May, fulfilling her goal of earning an undergraduate degree in three years to then pursue a master’s degree in her fourth year. She has been a sports management major, but because of the wide selection of courses she has been offered at UConn, is considering pursing an MBA.
“It’s no secret that I’ve experienced some challenges and my fair share of injuries. I’ve definitely grown from it but the support system that UConn has built around our team has been a major contributor to my ability to remain undaunted in the face of adversity,” Fudd, out for the season due to a knee injury, told the lawmakers.
Coach Geno Auriemma, when apprised of Fudd’s appearance, was rather pleased.
“I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall,” Auriemma said Friday
“It’s good that they get to experience that. It’s a great life lesson for them, a great builder of what’s happening after they leave here.”
Auriemma is due to speak at the capitol on this issue this week.
Sunday short takes
Forget the stats and whatever ups and downs there have been, Stephon Castle is apt to go high in the draft. The pro scouts and executives at UConn’s games have been saying that he just looks, moves, carries himself like an NBA player.
”If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute.” … If Mark Twain were alive today, he might reapply that: “If you disagree with what Rick Pitino just said, just ask him tomorrow.
There may be no scientific evidence to support the theory that it’s good to “get a loss out of your system” before the postseason, but if you’ve followed sports long enough, you know there is something to it. Would’ve been a huge ask for UConn men, for instance, to win 28 in a row.
*Metrics have their place, but now that they are Hockey East regular season champs, the UConn women deserve to go to the NCAA Tournament without having to win the conference tournament. In PairWise rankings they are on the bubble.
Great time for sports in Connecticut, eh? FairfieldQuinnipiac men’s basketball sold out in Hamden Friday. The Stags got the road win, 85-81, before 3,570.
Tyler O’Brien, who won seven CIAC titles, and a State Open and was all-New England as a sprinter for Rocky
Hill High in the 2000s, was inducted into the Marquette athletic Hall of Fame last month. O’Brien finished his career at Marquette in 2012 with school records in the indoor and outdoor 200-meter dashes, and the indoor 300 meters.
NFL Scouting Combine invitations went to
UConn offensive lineman Christian Haynes, who could be a late second-, early third-round pick; running back Jaden Shirden of West Haven, who played at Monmouth; Yale offensive lineman Kiran Amegadjie and former Yale center Nick Garguilo, who played at South Carolina last season. The combines start Monday.
Last word
It’s easier said than done, I know. But a coach has to be the grownup in the arena and resist the urge to react to hostile fans. Dan Hurley is on top of the heap, a coach of the year finalist (I would think the frontrunner.) His passion and fire put him there, but he should be beyond getting sidetracked by puerile fan behavior.