{"id":9406,"date":"2025-05-05T01:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T01:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/9406\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T01:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T01:46:09","slug":"byu-trio-among-handful-of-college-players-paying-it-forward-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/9406\/","title":{"rendered":"BYU trio among handful of college players paying it forward \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s no easy chore for BYU basketball players to escape the program\u2019s soaring expectations, which, like the morning sun, seem to rise brighter each day. Whether it\u2019s Joe Lunardi\u2019s projection as a No. 2 seed for next year\u2019s NCAA Tournament or CBS Sports ranking BYU No. 5 in its preseason poll, the Cougars are hot and getting hotter.<\/p>\n

To get out of the heat, Keba Keita<\/a> and Khadim Mboup<\/a> are going to a place that\u2019s even hotter \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

A trio of Cougars, including former BYU player Mawot Mag<\/a>, are joining forces with other college players, including Ibi Traore<\/a> (Utah) and Malick Diallo (TCU) at next month\u2019s Africa Elite Basketball Camps. The first camp will be in Mboup\u2019s country of Senegal (June 3-4) with the second one set for Mali (June 7-8), where Keita and former Cougar Fousseyni Traore<\/a> are from.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Special Collector’s Issue: “1984: The Year BYU was Second to None”<\/p>\n

Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football’s 1984 National Championship season.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThose boys come back and give back at these (basketball) camps,\u201d Utah businessman Carlos Iglesias told the \u201cY\u2019s Guys\u201d podcast recently. Iglesias supports the camps for Mike Clayton, who formed the non-profit Mali Wellness Foundation in 2016. \u201cEven the schoolteachers and staff look at these young men and how they have really grown up with their opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\"CarlosCarlos Iglesias, left, and Keba Keita meet for first time in August 2019 at one of the top outdoor facilities for basketball clubs named Centre “Hirondelle” de Baske-ball in Bamako, Mali. | Courtesy Carlos Iglesias <\/p>\n

\u201cHaving kids come to those courts to play basketball gives them a reason to come to school,\u201d Iglesias said. \u201cMost of these courts are at school and school isn\u2019t necessarily mandatory for them. We have to do something to keep these kids in school \u2014 so, why not sports?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s American parents. They also assist other players who come to the U.S. through the foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do this to help these young men have a future,\u201d Iglesias said. \u201cTheir 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 \u2014 to have college graduates start giving back to their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe struggled. It\u2019s not a good thing,\u201d he said. \u201cI have always said, \u2018If there was a way that I could give back one day, if I could just make enough money to make ends meet, I\u2019m going to try to help people.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\"StudentsStudents receive instruction at basketball camp at The “Palais” des SPORTS in Bamako, Mali, in April 2016. | Courtesy Carlos Iglesias <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing better that touches the human heart than serving others. I don\u2019t care how many problems you have, there are other people dealing with way more.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no guarantee that the Cougars\u2019 preseason hype won\u2019t follow Keita and Mboup halfway around the world and they might even get asked a question or two about the globe\u2019s top recruit AJ Dybantsa.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 mentoring starstruck kids who will stand and shoot at the same baskets where they used to play before someone came to help them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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 \u201cY\u2019s Guys\u201d at ysguys.com and is the author of the children\u2019s book \u201cC is for Cougar,\u201d available at deseretbook.com.<\/p>\n

If you would like to support the Africa Elite Basketball Camps, please go to maliwellnessfoundation.org and scroll to sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s no easy chore for BYU basketball players to escape the program\u2019s soaring expectations, which, like the morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,723],"class_list":{"0":"post-9406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab","13":"tag-news-feed-national"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114452705082771719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}