DjaldiTabdi found home at UM

Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi spent only this season with the Miami Hurricanes women’s basketball team, but says she will feel as sentimental as the other seniors when the team plays its regular season finale at home Sunday afternoon against Clemson.

Miami coach Katie Meier and her players opened their arms to Djaldi-Tabdi last spring when she was one of a dozen Syracuse players looking for a new home amid a scandal involving their coach. Djaldi-Tabdi, who was born in French Guiana and raised in France, reached out to two French UM players — Naomi Mbandu and Kenza Salgues — and they urged her to join them.

“It was obviously sad to leave my Syracuse teammates, but we all went to different places for a good reason,” she said. “Miami’s team is very familyoriented and you can communicate very easily with the coaches, you can talk to them about anything. When you are outside basketball, you can reach out to Coach Meier and it’s like talking to a friend. That’s something I was not familiar with when I was at Syracuse.”

Djaldi-Tabdi, a 6-2 forward, played for the French youth national teams and spent one season with French league team Flammes Carolo.

She arrived at Syracuse as a five-star recruit ranked No. 27 in the Class of

2017.

But she struggled to adapt to the college game early on and lost confidence.

“It’s about gaining confidence again after four years at a different school not playing as well as I wished to,” she said. “It’s been hard to find that rhythm again. I know I can play at lot better and this year at Miami has helped me find my game again.”

Djaldi-Tabdi is averaging 6.7 points and 3.6 rebounds for the Hurricanes (16-11, 9-8 ACC). She is a graduate student working on her Master’s degree in Liberal Arts.

In addition to DjaldiTabdi, the seniors being honored Sunday are Mykea Gray, Kelsey Marshall and Mbandu.