NBA Academies get a moment to shine in NCAA Tournament's spotlight

Jonathan Tchatchoua, a high-energy reserve forward for No. 1-seeded Baylor, will be crucial to the Bears’ 2021 NCAA Tournament journey.

The annual basketball Big Top carnival known as the NCAA Tournament begins Thursday, and it will attract the usual eyeballs belonging to students, alums and highly stressed gamblers. Almost all of them will be confined to these shores, because March Madness is mainly a domestic phenomenon.

And yet, increasingly, the reach is becoming more elastic, with curious observers sprouting in Africa and Australia and China and India. In certain pockets of these faraway places, there are rooting interests too, and maybe even a bracket or two is being filled out, albeit in a foreign language.

They’re paying special attention to Baylor. And Tennessee. And Iona. Those schools, and five others in the men’s NCAA Tournament, have players who were weaned on NBA Academies in their countries and are now seeing the benefits of that early basketball training. The organizers, coaches and current participants in those programs are sensing something big and enduring is taking root as a result.

Ultimately, the academies spread across Australia, China, India, Mexico and Senegal would love to see their teenaged graduates eventually graduate to the highest level of basketball. That would be the NBA, of course. But, baby steps.

The grassroots program launched in 2016, and some players are indeed professionals in other leagues. What began as a trickle into the NCAA has become a pipeline in such a short time. There are also academies for women that began in 2018 and eight players will be in the women’s NCAA Tournament.

The men’s NCAA tourney — the world’s most visible basketball platform outside the NBA — will showcase a few such players from the academies, namely Santiago Vescovi of Uruguay (who starts at point guard for Tennessee), Jonathan Tchatchoua of Cameroon (reserve forward for Baylor) and Nelly Junior Joseph of Nigeria (who’s getting groomed by Rick Pitino at Iona).

“It’s really exciting to see all these players play on the biggest platform possible with March Madness,” said Chris Ebersole, the NBA senior director who oversees the elite development of the academies.

The academies are geared to roust basketball interest among teenagers, then identify those with the best potential, and then herd the most promising players to facilities and coaches so they can maximize their opportunity. It is year-round, hands-on and all-encompassing — elite players leave their families, live in dorms, travel for games and not only are exposed to basketball, but other benefits designed to aid their matriculation to colleges and beyond.

The academies are offspring of Basketball Without Borders and the Jr. NBA, both NBA-backed programs designed to tap into underserved markets to find and nurture talent. A growing number of NBA players are discovered in this manner — it’s up to 76 now that have made the jump to the NBA — most notably All-Stars Joel Embiid and Pascal Siakam as well as Jamal Murray — to name a few — from BWB.

“It’s a full-on, holistic program,” said Ebersole of the academies. “We wanted to find players with a high amount of upside, give them the tools on and off the court to develop and put them on the pathway to ultimately a career in basketball. It’s academics, life skills, strength and conditioning, nutrition, putting all those pieces together and put them on a pathway, whether to college basketball, G League, other pro leagues around the world, and of course the NBA.”

Santiago Vescovi started 22 of 26 games for the NCAA Tournament-bound Tennessee Volunteers in 2020-21.

The NCAA Tournament, canceled last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, will shed light on those trained by the academies. In addition to Vescovi, Junior Joseph and Tchatchoua, others who’ll get a taste of the tournament are Francisco Caffaro (Virginia), Timothy Ighoefe (Georgetown), Anyang Garang (Oklahoma), Oumar Ballo (Gonzaga) and Olivier Maxence Prosper (Clemson).

Tchatchoua only started playing basketball five years ago in Cameroon. While his friends naturally migrated to soccer, he began shooting on a hoop created by a broom stick, a basket and a soccer ball. The academy upgraded those tools and gave him a springboard.

In a recent interview, he said: “I went to this camp in Cameroon. I did okay … me and four other guys were selected for Basketball Without Borders. I did alright and got a scholarship to one of the first NBA Global Academy programs in Australia. In Africa, it’s more about getting a scholarship to go to the U.S. My dad was all-in to get a scholarship in the U.S. I told him it was my dream. Australia was different, but it was backed up by the NBA, so I thought it was a good thing for me.”

Tchatchoua’s nickname is “Everyday John” because of his personality and approach to basketball, which has obviously become a passion and he averages 6.7 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. And there’s the likelihood that he could become part of a national-championship team, since Baylor enters the tournament as a strong favorite.

Ebersole said: “Jonathan was one of our first players in the program when we started, the inaugural class of players in Australia. He joined our program when we had no track record. He took a leap with us and we’ll always be grateful for him and the rest of those players in that inaugural program. To see it pay off for him is satisfying … his journey hasn’t been the smoothest, he started at UNLV, sat out a year, then had the COVID year, and now he’s having an impact with one of the best programs in the country.”

The task of placing academy grads in college is largely the role of Greg Collucci, a former college player and coach who’s a senior manager of NBA academies. The elite players from the academies are showcased at the Final Four in a Saturday game labeled Next Generation Showcase, giving scores of NCAA coaches a first-hand look at potential talent without having to fly overseas to scout them. But for those coaches who do wish to use their passport, there’s an academy showcase game each summer. There are 43 players who have made college rosters form the academies, and seven advanced to play professionally overseas.

“Once the colleges coaches were able to get out and see how the players were doing and how much talent they have, it became tangible for college coaches and they were ready to begin the recruiting process,” Collucci said.

Jonathan Tchatchoua took a long path to find happiness with Baylor.

Junior Joseph was recently named the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year. After playing at the Senegal academy, he was a late arrival to campus and preseason practices. But, he caught on fast with Pitino and the Gaels to become one of the best front court players in the MAAC.

Pitino said: “I’m very proud of Nelly … he came to us late due to visa issues with the pandemic forcing shutdowns of the embassies in Senegal and Nigeria, only to deal with all of the COVID-19 related issues we’ve had. He’s been a pleasure to coach, always works hard and is willing to get better every day. We’re excited for Nelly’s potential to become an outstanding basketball player and his development will be very fun to watch.”

Likewise, Vescovi was a late arrival at Tennessee, yet impressed quickly and captured a starting job with the Volunteers. The clever guard was one of the better players for Tennessee’s run in the SEC Tournament semifinals and already a team leader.

“I think I’m a guy right now that can help my teammates,” Vescovi said.

Collucci said the adjustment for players such as Vescovi is made easier on the next level because of the exposure to that lifestyle they get at the elite level of the academies.

“You become a big brother to these kids,” he said. “We wear a lot of hats, we travel the world with them, they put a lot of trust in us. Santiago walks in to Tennessee in the middle of the year and becomes the starting point guard for a team in the SEC about a week later. The prior year we didn’t know if he was going to land at a college. He was in programs in Italy and Australia playing against top competition prior to Tennessee. That helped him adapt in college, because all of this happened in span of nine months. It wasn’t foreign to him.”

Iona’s Nelly Junior Joseph was the MAAC rookie of the year and averaged 11.4 ppg and 7.6 rpg this season.

Players such as Vescovi, Junior Joseph and Tchatchoua will essentially become ambassadors for the academies. Their stories will be told during the NCAA Tournament, which gets high exposure — and that’s not lost on Ebersole and Collucci. It can only have a positive trickle-down effect to those already in the academies.

“Now there’s a path and trail that’s been blazed by kids who have gone before them,” Collucci said. “The numbers will increase, the exposure to the program will be greater, so kids in these regions now will know about our programs.”

A steady increase in numbers at the grassroots level will increase the odds of finding elite players at the academies, some of whom could eventually find their way to the NBA. While those who run the academies are certainly pleased by the number of campers who get college scholarships, the ultimate goal when the program began was to generate future pros.

“We were always pleasantly surprised how quickly we were able to get the programs off and running,” Ebersole said. “The fact we’ve had some success early on speaks to that foundation of already having this pipeline and groundswell of youth participation from programs like BWB and Jr. NBA. There was actually quicker wins and successes that we expected. Like any new program there’s always bumps in the road but for the most part we’re pleased.

“In certain countries basketball isn’t on the same level as, say, cricket in India. Most countries in Africa, soccer is the leading sport although basketball is growing quickly. Overall we’ve been surprised by the enthusiasm and overall numbers of kids who are playing. The NBA is reaching tens of millions of kids. We always want to keep those numbers growing and the popularity of the sport.”

The placement of players in March Madness can only generate more interest in the tournament in places where kids will place a higher priority on playing basketball. That’s the purpose, anyway.

“One of the cool things of the academy program is it’s developing the ambassadors who are going to inspire the future participants,” Ebersole said. “It’s a cycle that feeds itself. Those who make it at the top are inspiring the next wave.”

* * *

Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.