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After a long recruiting process, Mohamed Bamba has announced his decision to play college basketball next season with the Texas Longhorns.
The 7-footer was viewed as the last piece of John Calipari’s 2017 recruiting class, which is already a lock for another No. 1 ranking. However, it needed another elite post player to become a true national title favorite for next season, but that won’t come from Bamba.
The elite big man chose Texas over Kentucky, Duke, and Michigan. Bamba should be a defensive force in college basketball next season. Standing at 7-feet tall with an absurd 7’9 wingspan (which would be the longest in the NBA), Bamba will be a major factor at the rim blocking shots and altering many others. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him near the top, if not leading, the blocked shots category next season.
Calipari has shown that his teams at Kentucky are at their best defensively when perimeter defenders can afford to gamble a little bit, knowing they have a player like Bamba swarming around the paint to contest shots at the rim. Bamba’s defense and shot-blocking ability could have been in the mold of guys like Anthony Davis, Nerlens Noel, Willie Cauley-Stein, Karl-Anthony Towns and others.
Alas, Bamba won’t follow their paths which began at Kentucky after picking Texas instead. Good luck to him on his college journey in Austin.