SEN - Veteran Badiane among the last cuts
DAKAR (Afrobasket/FIBA Basketball World Cup) - Senegal coach Cheikh Sarr has swung the axe ahead of the AfroBasket and decided not to take Boubacar Coly, Malick Badiane and Djibril Thiam to Cote d'Ivoire. The exclusion of Badiane, a former NBA draft pick, is perhaps the biggest surprise with the 2.11m center having played for national for the past ...
DAKAR (Afrobasket/FIBA Basketball World Cup) - Senegal coach Cheikh Sarr has swung the axe ahead of the AfroBasket and decided not to take Boubacar Coly, Malick Badiane and Djibril Thiam to Cote d'Ivoire.
The exclusion of Badiane, a former NBA draft pick, is perhaps the biggest surprise with the 2.11m center having played for national for the past several years, including 2005 when the country finished runners-up to Angola in the continental championship and qualified for the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan.
The 29-year-old averaged 8.8 points and 11 rebounds at AfroBasket 2011.
Coly, 30, is also a center who was a prominent player in Madagascar when Senegal came in fifth.
In all, there will be eight players making their AfroBasket debuts for the country in Cote d'Ivoire.
National team captain Maleye Ndoye, Mamadou Ndoye, Mohamed Faye and Mohamed Diop are the only holdovers from the team that featured two years ago.
Among the newcomers will be former NBA lottery pick Saer Sene, who spent the past two years in Spain's Liga Endesa with Fuenlabrada.
Sene recently signed for Antibes in France.
The top three sides at the Afrobasket will clinch places at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup.
Senegal squad for AfroBasket 2013: Mamadou Ndoye, Louis Adams, Pape Malick Gadiaga, Ibrahima Mbengue, Maleye Ndoye, Mouhamed Faye, Mohamed Diop, El Hadji Malick Ndiaye, Abdou Badji, Saer Sene, Hamady Ndiaye and Ibrahima Thomas.
FIBA