SLCC basketball: Africans aid Bruins' tourney quest

If you know how to whip up a batch of Cebbu Jen — or have a spare pot of the spicy Senegalese rice and fish dish boiling on your kitchen stove — you could make Papa Samba Guisse a very happy young man. No offense to U.S. cuisine, but he's had more than his share of hamburgers since coming to America, and he's hungry for some home cooking.

His friend, Vassy Banny, will settle for an order of warm Ivory Coast weather, hold the extra Utah frost and snowflakes, please.

That's not to say the teammates are homesick for Africa. Sure, they sometimes miss aspects of life on their native continent, but they've made themselves right at home in Utah — especially on the Salt Lake Community College basketball court — despite not having their friends, family, favorite foods or balmy climate.

"When I first got here, I used to think everything was weird, seriously," Banny said. "Now I like it."

Even pancakes, an odd concoction for Banny in the beginning, have won him over.

Not only have Guisse and Banny adapted well to the sometimes-shocking cultural differences in their three years here, but they've also picked up English and are excelling in college classrooms that are half-a-world away from their Western African homes.

Oh yeah, they've also turned themselves into quite the pair of basketball players during their extended trip to America, too.

How's this for a souvenir: Guisse, a 6-9 backup center, recently earned a spot on the All-Scenic West Athletic Conference second team, and Banny, a 6-3 small forward, received honorable mention honors as one of the league's top 18 players.

"It's pretty cool — from where we're coming from and where we've got, it's very exciting. We have to adapt to everything — the culture, the basketball, I mean, everything. It was tough at the beginning. It was very, very, very tough," Banny said. "And then when we're all-region right now, we're just very, very happy. ... It's the result of hard, hard work."

If not for its African athletes, SLCC might not be 29-3, ranked fourth and a favorite at this week's NJCAA national championships.

"They've both come along great and they're keys," said SLCC coach Norm Parrish. "When they play good, we're really hard to beat. ... We don't have anyone else like them."

That's true in multiple ways — from their much-improved basketball assets to their unique backgrounds and broken-but-endearing accents.

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Guisse and Banny first came to America through the NBA's international "Basketball Without Borders" program, which helps develop players around the world. In 2005, they went to a camp and did some hoops globetrotting across the country, which included playing in Texas and meeting NBA stars.

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