So many American firsts for Bradly Basila in the books and one big basketball one still to come: A dunk in a game

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

One month and a few days into his time living and going to school in Chesterton, the high school basketball team’s in-season addition from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 6-foot-7 freshman Bradly Basila, already has experienced several firsts.
His first McDonald’s hamburger came the day he arrived. His first time shooting on a hoop with a glass backboard and gripping a leather basketball as opposed to a rubber one came when he stepped into the Chesterton gymnasium for the first time.
He gets his first taste of a big-time Indiana high school basketball rivalry tonight at Valparaiso.
Other firsts on the horizon have unknown arrival dates. One of the more interesting ones to try to guess: When will he dunk in a game?
Also, what will that do for him?
“I think it will give him more confidence,” junior teammate Rob Czarniecki said. “Obviously, if I could dunk, I’d go up there and do it every time. He does it in practice, but doing it in the game is different, so that will give him more confidence to get up there and finish at the rim.”
Czarniecki said Basila consistently plays hard in practice and called him “very driven.”
Robert Williams, a 6-7 senior, guards Basila in practice at times.
“We saw a video of him practicing for like an hour from before he came here,” Williams said. “He dunked absolutely everything, so obviously the game has been coming a long way for him.”
Williams predicted the first dunk is “coming soon. … Getting a dunk for any player obviously increases your mojo throughout the game, so I feel like after he gets a dunk, that’s going to be his game going forth.”
Williams said he never has dunked in a game, either playing JV the past two years or in his limited varsity playing this season.
“If I get a breakaway, I promise I’ll dunk it,” Williams said.
Tonight’s game at Valparaiso would not be as likely a first dunk for either player as Saturday night’s home game, simply because of the relative strength of the opponents. Valparaiso is on a five-game winning streak. Whiting, Chesterton’s opponent Saturday, takes an 0-19 record into tonight’s game vs. River Forest.
After that, the only remaining game in the regular season for the Trojans is at home vs. Culver Academies on Feb. 28 at 6:30 p.m.
“Everybody’s going to be lit,” sophomore guard Malachi Ransom said of the moment Basila gets his first dunk. “It’s going to be crazy. It’s up from there for him, for sure.”
Junior Logan Pokorney said of Basila’s first dunk: “I think it’ll give him confidence. It might give him confidence and allow him to play freely and play like he always does in practice.”
Ninth-year Chesterton coach Marc Urban is encouraged at how far Basila has come so quickly but isn’t in denial as to how far he has to go.
“It’s just a matter of continuous repetition and some experience,” Urban said. “I wish there was a magic wand to it, but I don’t know what that magic wand is, whether he needs to slow down or what, but I think his confidence is going to click. There is going to be a breakthrough that’s like, ‘OK, here we go.’”
Basila attempted a dunk against Hanover Central but took off a little too far from the hoop and missed it. In the win at Michigan City, he made quick move that left him so open that he likely could have dunked It. Instead, he attempted a layup that glanced off the rim.
“Bradly’s coming along really well. He’s picking up things really fast,” Ransom said. “He’s a very smart kid and he’s going to be really good for us.”
Basila is more advanced as a player in some areas than others.
His length, quickness, agility, leaping ability and motor have made him the team’s leader per minutes played in rebounds and personal fouls drawn. His lack of experience and sometimes seemingly a lack of awareness of where he is on the floor have been factors in him shooting .323 from the field, as has shot selection.
It's easy to forget he has played just five games. He’s averaging 5.8 points and 3.6 rebounds, mostly as a reserve.
His teammates/new friends are mindful of helping him to expand his English vocabulary and they enjoy learning French words from him.
“We’re starting to figure Bradly out and Bradly’s starting to figure us out,” Urban said. “Everybody’s getting more comfortable with it. I think it’s made Caden (Schneider) better. Caden’s done a good job of supporting him and communicating with him a lot on what to do and where to go, and I think it’s made Caden’s game better, too.”
Obviously, by far the best solution to the language barrier is time, and by the time next season rolls around, it shouldn’t be much of an issue.
“I think he’s picking up on it,” Urban said. “I think he’s a little bit more comfortable. He’s getting comfortable around our guys. He’s comfortable around me where you can kind of joke with him a little bit like, ‘You didn’t understand anything I just said, did you?’ He’ll say: ‘LIttle, little, little.’ The more he understands what’s being said and what to do and how to apply it, the better it’s going to be. And all the feedback from his teachers is that he’s been doing really well and working really hard.”
Urban said he shifted his initial approach with Basila, so as not to grind the team’s progress to a halt.
“The first week we slowed it down in practice and tried to do everything there, whereas the next week I told him, ‘All right, we’re going to throw you in the fire and we’re just going to go. I’m going to coach you. Then we’ll go back and watch it on film, but we can’t slow down,’” Urban said.
Basila’s first game came at home against Lake Central, a 60-50 loss.
“I think that’s where we lost a little of our edge going against Lake Central. We slowed down and tried to get too cute: ‘If we’re small we can do this. If we’re big we can do this.’ Now it’s you’ve got to know everything,” Urban said. “You’ve just got to know it. It’s a lot on him, but with us seeing how intelligent he is and us having some of the sign language that we do, he has done an incredible job picking stuff up.”
Everyone was impressed with Basila’s flexibility when strength and conditioning coach Matt Wagner put the players through a yoga session. Urban said that during stretching, Ransom, freshman Cooper Huwig and senior Anthony Gonzalez took the opportunity to wear their English tutoring hats, grabbing a knee, an elbow, etc. and asking, “What’s this? What’s this? What’s this?”
The learning and teaching flows in both directions.
“It’s been a fun experience, just learning about him and his culture,” Williams said. “He’s a really good kid.”