Coulibaly comes to Pitt after making history

In the 40-year history of the FIBA U19 World Cup, no team from the continent of Africa had ever made the quarterfinals.

That changed this year when Pitt freshman Karim Coulibaly and his countrymen from Mali got past the knockout phase and into the round of eight.

But Coulibaly and company didn’t stop there: once they got to the quarterfinals, they upended Puerto Rico 84-74. The next day, they faced off against France in the semifinals, and in the latest improbable result after a week full of them, Mali won 76-73 to make the finals.

The United States ended Mali’s dream run with a convincing 93-79 defeat in the title game, but the impact of the team’s success in the tournament was unmistakable:

Here was Mali, a country that had won exactly one game in its two previous U19 World Cup appearances, rolling through the best players the rest of the world had to offer. To call it unexpected would be an understatement.

Unless you’re talking to the players themselves.

“I mean, I was thinking, when we go there, we’re going to prove to the world that we can be the best, too,” Coulibaly said in Pittsburgh this week. “That was my goal, because I know how much work I put in and how much my teammates put in.”

Mali’s roster shared a country of origin, but the players came together from scattered points. Coulibaly and three of his teammates were playing in the U.S. Three others had been playing in France. One was playing in Mexico and one was in Senegal. But they weren’t unknown to each other; that same group - minus two personnel changes - came together a year ago to claim the FIBA U18 African Championship with a perfect 5-0 record.

That championship earned Mali a spot in the U19 World Cup and brought Coulibaly and company to Greece. One player - center Oumar Ballo - missed the first two games due to visa issues, but his teammates picked up the slack to defeat Latvia and Canada. Coulibaly averaged 14 points and 8.5 rebounds in those first two contests without Ballo, but what really seemed to catch the attention of observers was how the team from Mali responded to the tournament-opening win over Latvia:

They walked off the court. No celebrating. No cheering. No hysterics. Just a business-like approach to the country’s first U19 World Cup win since 2007.

“We know who we are. That’s why we didn’t celebrate,” Coulibaly said. “It was the first game; we didn’t win the title yet. It just started. We had five more games to play.”

Mali would lose the third game, a three-point loss to Australia. But to Coulibaly, that might have been a turning point for his team.

“We played hard against Australia - we were down like 14 points with a few minutes and then we worked hard and came back but we still lost. That was a good game. I believed we would do something, but that was the day I said, ‘We’re going to win the title.’ We didn’t make it, but that was a good point.

“I didn’t worry. I said, that’s a good point because now we know why we came here. We knew our mistakes and learned from it to win the next game. We focused on the next game. I talked to my teammates and said that: next game.”

Coulibaly scored 17 points in the loss to Australia and matched that total in the title game loss to the U.S. Mali posted a 5-2 record in the tournament and he averaged 13.1 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game. He was Mali’s third-leading scorer and fourth on the team in rebounds, but he says there’s more to his game than what shows up in the box score.

“Every game, even if I score a lot, if I don’t play good defense or rebound, I don’t want to talk about it. The point is, you have to do a little bit of everything. Every day, I have to bring something: rebound, play defense, do your job.

“I have to do that because that’s what I’m known for. I can score, too, but my goal is to play defense and rebound. I have to. I have a lot of work to do, too, because college isn’t high school. I have to push myself to work hard.”

That’s how Coulibaly led his home country to the best performance ever in the FIBA U19 World Cup by an African nation, and that’s how he plans to make his mark at Pitt. The Panthers have a need for rebounding in the coming season, and while Coulibaly likely won’t be a starter, Pitt should be able to use the 6’8” forward on the glass this year.

“I want to do my best,” he said. “I want to play my game, fight for rebounds, fight for defense, try to score - do everything and do my thing. That’s it. Every time I’m on the court, I want to play hard. That’s it.