I’ll say this: we’ve been in a lot of different recruiting battles and a lot of different recruiting stuff. This was an all-timer. We got him here by about 12 hours, and it was a team effort. Our academic people, led by Katie and those folks, did a phenomenal job. Our administration—Boo and Michelle—our international office, with Miss James over there, it was wild. Everybody did everything they could to make it work, and we’re unbelievably appreciative.
One of the reasons it’s so great is he’s maybe one of the nicest and most appreciative kids you’ll ever meet. He’s very soft-spoken, but he’s one of the most appreciative kids. He’s always dreamed of playing Division One basketball, and he’s always dreamed of being able to go to college. He’s got six siblings back in Gambia, and only one of them played junior college basketball here in the United States. But he’s so appreciative of NC State. He’s so appreciative of what everybody’s done.
He’s been best friends with Kayla and Sierra over in academics the first couple weeks, trying to get caught up on everything. Luckily, he speaks good English—Gambia was colonized by the British, so English is the first language over there, which was helpful. Come for the basketball, stay for the history lesson.
Look, he’s a good player. I mean, here’s the thing: the first practice, a couple of our players were like, “Golly, guys, did y’all Google him or anything?” Well, yeah. “Did you see he declared early for the draft and did five NBA workouts?” This kid’s a real player. We weren’t dumpster diving. We didn’t just go find him off the trash heap. Like, this guy’s a real player, I think our guys were a little surprised. He measured in just shy of 6’10”, so he’s a little bit bigger, and he can play the wing, the four, and the five. We can use him and move him around.
But he is an elite, elite, elite defender. Terrance Arceneaux is one of the best defenders in the country, and Musa is every bit as good of a defender as Terrance is. We feel he kind of completed our team. We had a little bit of a void there. And a lot of times when you add a kid late, you kind of know what the talent you’re adding is, but you want to make sure you add a great person, somebody who fits within your team, somebody who fits within your standards and what you’re about. He checks all those boxes and then some.
It’s good perspective for our guys too. This kid’s played professionally in one of the toughest leagues in the world. To see how appreciative he is to be here—he thanks everybody every day after we eat—it’s good perspective for our guys, because sometimes we lose perspective. We have all these guys who have transferred from other high majors, thinking, “Oh, I should get this, I should get that.” Let’s show some appreciation for what we have.
To see somebody that’s played in the Spanish ACB League and has played at the highest levels in the world, and then comes to college, and how much he appreciates college, appreciates the college experience, and appreciates everything NC State’s done for him and all the people who have worked so hard to allow his dream to come true—it’s really something unique and pretty special.