Inside the Huddle | From Senegal to Champaign: Ndour Crosses Ocean to Chase Dreams, Opportunities

The first time Aicha Ndour picked up a basketball, she was laughed at.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” the other kids would often say.

Initially deciding to stop playing at her local court due to the bullying and ridicule, Ndour eventually gave the sport another shot. And it paid off.

From the streets of Somone, Senegal, to the bright lights of Big Ten basketball in the United States, Ndour has proven those critics wrong, becoming the first person from her hometown to play college hoops in the U.S. at the Division-I level. 

“If it wasn't for basketball, I wouldn't be here right now. I would still be in Senegal,” Ndour said. “This experience has taught me a lot about life and being away from family, but it has also made me grateful for the opportunities that I have. A lot of young people back home want to be where I'm at, but they don't have the chances. I’m just very grateful.”

While soccer is the most popular sport in Senegal, Ndour opted to participate in basketball and rugby, the latter of which featured a coach but was typically played in an unorganized manner. Tired of constantly getting hurt and balancing school with practice, Ndour made the unfortunate realization that her career in rugby, the first sport she ever played, would need to come to an end.

Ndour then fully leaned into basketball, a sport she started to enjoy playing and one that proved optimal for her height. At the age of 16, she took the next step in her career, applying for and enrolling in SEED Academy. Located about an hour away in Thies, the program was the first basketball academy for student-athletes in Africa and partnered with the NBA Africa Academy.

Inspired to attend SEED Academy after seeing a boy from her town partake in the program, Ndour went through and passed academy and basketball tests before being accepted. She knew SEED would give her the tools to pursue her dreams of playing basketball at a higher level, and taking the leap of faith alongside her older sister, she moved away from home and enrolled.

“People were saying, ‘You will go far if you keep going,’” Ndour said. “It was the only academy that would teach you how to play basketball and then go to school. I was like, ‘Let me give it a chance.’ I'm pretty sure I was not that good when I did the test, but I was pretty tall, I could jump, and I was pretty fast. They were like, ‘Oh, she will be good. She has potential,’ and I was really good at school, too.”

Living with a host family for the duration of her three years at SEED Academy, Ndour and her classmates would attend school for five to six hours during the week before heading to basketball around 3 p.m. every day. The group would then practice for about three hours before returning home for the night.

Hoping to eventually move across the ocean in search of opportunities to play basketball in the U.S., Ndour enjoyed being around like-minded people every day, all of whom aimed to follow that path after leaving the program.

“Whenever you were at the academy, we talked about how to get an opportunity to go to the U.S. and then play basketball and go to high school there,” Ndour said. “We would have coaches from the U.S. come visit us sometimes, and they would tell us, ‘In the U.S., you will have opportunities to go to college, get a degree, and play basketball, and then you might have the opportunity to play in the WNBA if you want or go play pro overseas.’”

In 2019, Ndour had the opportunity to pursue those goals, spending her final year of high school at Cushing Academy in Massachusetts.

So excited to travel to the United States, Ndour did not ask many questions once she was told she would make the move overseas. Despite knowing very little English – she spoke French along with two Senegalese dialects, Wolof and Serer – and being thousands of miles from family and familiarity, Ndour jumped at the chance to chase her American dreams.

“I was so excited that I didn't even ask anything,” Ndour said. “I didn’t really know the process because the people that work at SEED took care of everything. I didn't really know what was going on. I just knew that I was going to the U.S. to finish school, so I was excited.”

After partaking in an NBA Academy camp back in Africa in 2018, Ndour received the chance to compete at another NBA Global event in Florida in April of 2019. Playing in a showcase alongside student-athletes from all over the world, Ndour displayed her skills in front of a crowd, something she never had the ability to do back in Senegal.

Despite still adjusting to a new country, a new culture, a new environment, and a new language, Ndour dominated at the event, and it gave her the chance to interact and connect with college coaches here in the States.

“When I got chosen to go to Tampa, I was like, ‘I'm just gonna go and play.’ I didn't really understand what was going on,” Ndour said. “To be honest, I was just going with the flow. At that time, I really didn't understand what was going on. I was just playing basketball. When I saw the coaches, they were like, ‘These are college coaches; they are here to watch y'all to see if they want to recruit you.’ I was like, ‘Oh, we have to show what we can do,’ so I just played basketball.”

In the fall of 2019, Ndour enrolled at Cushing, where she became a two-sport athlete. Since the basketball season did not start until the winter, Ndour’s principal opted to sign her up for volleyball, a sport she had no idea how to play.

It took some time and patience to get over the learning curve, but Ndour’s height and resilience proved pivotal as she grew her love of the sport.

“I was like, ‘I don't know how to play volleyball. It's not something that I even like to play. I don't know why you signed me up.’ My principal said, ‘It will be fun. Just trust me.’

“First, I went to practice. You have to hit the ball with your palm, and it hurt so bad that I said, ‘I'm not gonna go back because this is hard. I don't want to do this.’ He said, ‘Trust me. Try it again. You will like it.’ I tried it again, and I was really good at blocking. I was like, ‘OK, I like blocking, so this is gonna be fun.’ I learned how to toss the ball and hit. I don't know how, but I got good. I played during games. It was fun.”

Once hoops season started, she switched her focus back to the sport she came to the U.S. to play. Coached by her college counselor, Rich Roller, who was an assistant at Cushing after spending 22 years as the head coach at another high school in New England, Ndour battled through language barriers during her early days with the team.

Roller still remembers his first interactions with the Senegalese center back in the summer of 2019, when Ndour signed up for a course in English as a second language. 

“My initial impression was she was very courageous and very inspirational,” Roller said. “To think she was going 3,600 miles away from home. She’s in a strange country. She’s in a strange school. She doesn't speak the language well. She has no friends. She has no support group. She’s going to be shortly starting at a school where she has no idea how the American educational system works. She was trying to acclimate herself to a whole new existence: a new language, a new culture, a new school, a new country. That's a huge jump.

“Beyond that, she said, ‘I want to go back to Senegal, and I want to help other young women in Senegal. I want to be a role model for other young women. I want to help other young women take the next step in their life.’ I was impressed by that. There aren't too many 18-year-old kids who are thinking about doing what they do to help other people. I found her very thoughtful and very mature, but quiet and reserved. She was in a whole new world.”

Cushing served as Ndour’s first experience of playing for an organized team in a competitive league, and she helped snap the Penguins’ postseason drought and guide the team to the end-of-season tournament.

Despite only spending one year at Cushing, Ndour made a lasting impression on Roller and the program, whether it be for her contributions on and off the court or her presence and bright personality outside the game of basketball.

“Her impact was certainly significant,” Roller said. “She was a good player. She rebounded well. She could score well in the low post. It was a year of growth for her, and I think she would admit that. There were some moments of really nice success, and there were some very frustrating moments. It was just learning the style and learning to do it in a disciplined team setting.”

Ndour attended Rutgers during her first year at the college level, though she logged only two minutes and made one appearance, which just so happened to come against the Fighting Illini in 2021. Playing under COVID-19 protocols throughout the 2020-21 season, Ndour realized she wanted to transfer to improve her mental health and fight for increased minutes.

She opted to attend Northwest Florida State College, located between Pensacola and Tallahassee in the Florida panhandle. Playing in 18 games, Ndour averaged 2.2 points and 1.4 rebounds while shooting 41% from the field. She helped the Raiders compile a 27-3 record and earn a berth in the 2022 NJCAA Division I women's basketball championships.

It was also, most importantly, during her time in Florida that she connected with her future head coach, Shauna Green.

Ndour and Green clicked almost instantly, and the 6-foot-6 center knew she wanted to transfer once again and play for the Orange and Blue. Returning to the Big Ten, Ndour announced her commitment to Green and the Fighting Illini on May 27, 2022.

“When you meet good people, you just see them and you feel the good energy. They made me feel at home when I came to visit,” Ndour said. “When I saw Illinois, I loved it. I loved the college and how we had a lot of resources here. The coaches are really good people, and they have a sense of family. I was like, ‘Why not?’”

Ndour played in 23 games as a junior, averaging 4.7 minutes, 1.5 points, and 1.6 rebounds while shooting 50% from the field. She made an instant impact in her Illini debut, amassing 10 points, seven rebounds, and two blocks against LIU.

After completing the 2022-23 campaign, Ndour was selected to represent her country at FIBA Women’s AfroBasket 2023 in Rwanda. She helped Senegal overcome a third-place finish in group play as they won three consecutive games to earn a place in the championship, in which they ultimately came up just short.

Ndour was especially excited to represent her country and fulfill a dream her father had set for her. After he passed away, Aicha Ndour knew he would be proud of her accomplishments.

The AfroBasket competition marked Ndour’s first trip back to Africa in three years, and her friends and family used it as an opportunity to honor one of their town’s biggest stars. The Somone community organized a homecoming ceremony for Ndour, and she took photos with young kids who view the Illini’s senior center as a role model and motivation.

“I really didn't know that I was known until I went back home to play for the national team. I went back to where I started playing basketball, and I saw a lot of kids who looked up to me,” Ndour said. “That made me realize people really look up to my path and look up to what I'm doing. I'm not going to disappoint them, and I'm going to show them that it can be done, even if they're in Senegal in a small town.”

From Senegal to Champaign, Ndour is making everyone back home in Somone proud every time she takes the court. The journey has been long and difficult, but she has embraced the bumps in the road along her route to Illinois.

As she competes in her second season with the Fighting Illini, Roller is incredibly proud to watch his former player’s inspirational story transpire on the national stage.

“It's very rewarding to see where she's gotten because, to a large extent, it's been a self journey,” Roller said. “There have been people helping her along the way, but for someone to goes through what Aicha went through, the adjustments she had to make, and the timeframe in which she had to do it, that's a self journey. I find it very rewarding, and I take great pride in it because it speaks to me about the person that Aicha is, the resolve that she has, and the resilience that she has. 

“I think her growth has been tremendous. To be at the University of Illinois, be on a Power-Five team, and to be doing well in the classroom, those are huge steps for a young woman who, five years ago, was in Thies, Senegal, trying to figure out what's going on in the world. It’s very rewarding and very satisfying because I recognize that, for her, a lot of this has been a self journey. It's just really nice to see.”