Assane Sene

Sene is your classic case of a raw, athletic big man who needs time to develop. He has a tremendous wingspan which makes him a shot blocking menace, able to alter a lot of shots that he isn’t even in position for. Physically he is being held back by his rail thin 220 pound frame. Sene had trouble holding his position on the block against Florida International commit Freddy Asprilla in South Kent’s match up with Patterson School. For a player a little more polished this might not be as much of an issue, but Sene’s post game needs a good amount of work before it is ready for the ACC.

Despite possessing fairly good mobility for a player his size, Sene still appears to be growing into his body. There were a couple of times where he dribbled the ball off his foot in his attempts at getting to the basket. Like all talented prospects though, there were enough flashes of ability to show why the Cavaliers signed him. Sene had a gorgeous drop step move along the baseline in the second half that led to an easy lay in.

We didn’t get to see as much of Sene as we would have liked since he split time inside with senior teammate Christian Morris who will be suiting up for Rutgers next season. From what we did see, though, it is clear that Sene is an interesting project. Physically, his frame looks like it can easily take on a substantial amount of more weight while allowing Sene to keep his mobility. Four years of college coaching should have his offensive game more polished, allowing him to become more of an impact player.

Assane Sene finished off his weekend in Lowell with an excellent performance, utilizing his physical tools perfectly to dominate a much less physically gifted team, after a fairly weak performance against the much more talented Findlay Prep team the day before. Sene has certain gifts that cannot be taught as they say—namely terrific size (7 feet), length, and athleticism. He is still very far from being able to put it all together against serious collegiate big men prospects, but he does possess a considerable amount of upside.

Very much left-handed, Sene is offensively a fairly limited player. He can catch and dunk, finish in transition, or get some points by crashing the offensive glass-- but everything else is mostly a struggle for him. He has poor awareness, very little in the ways of post moves, average hands, and just decent coordination. He often looks awkward and lost when the ball is thrown to him in the post, as he doesn’t have any consistent way of creating offense for himself. His right hand is virtually non-existent, as are his ball-handling skills and shooting range outside of five feet.

Defensively, Sene shows considerably more potential, largely due to his physical profile. He has nice lateral quickness and is extremely quick off his feet, giving him the ability to rotate defensively and intimidate players slashing into the lane, mostly with his left hand. He tries to block absolutely everything around the basket, though, for better or for worse, meaning he’s often prone to foul trouble due to the fact that he bites on almost every pump-fake. If he doesn’t block the shot, it isn’t rare to see him end up completely out of position. He’s still a bit on the skinny side, but it does seem like he will grow into his frame eventually as he gets older. As a rebounder, Sene relies a bit too much on his physical tools rather than boxing out his opponent, but at this level, that rarely matters since he’s so much more gifted physically than anyone else.

Sene seems to be a fairly tough, active player who works hard on the court—which bodes well for his future once he lands on campus at Virginia. He has a great deal of work ahead of him before he can even begin to scrape the surface on his potential, and it will be interesting to see how he pans out.