Pittsburgh Panther
Since arriving as a shy and skinny boy, Zanna has blossomed into
a confident man. “To this day, I wish I would’ve taken a ‘before’
picture,” Keithline says, laughing at the memory. “You could say he
was skinny.”
No more. Or at least not so much. Today, Zanna is 6’9”, 230 pounds
of pure adrenaline. Once known mostly as a defensive player, he has
added offensive skills as his game has progressed. When he shows
off the tattoo honoring his father, he reveals muscle definition more
pronounced than most basketball players. Teammates and coaches
marvel at his work ethic on the court, while his studies off the court
impress his host father.
Zanna’s days of being a wide-eyed kid in America are mostly, if not
entirely, over. The days of the ACC reacting to Zanna in a similar
way might be just beginning. Pitt joins the ACC in basketball this
year, and if the school is going make a run at a league title, it will
need Zanna to have the best season of his career.
He sees this season as his opportunity to fulfill the dreams that have
driven him since the day he said goodbye to his father. His coaches,
family, and friends expect big things from him this season, that his
years of hard work and study will culminate in a breakout year.
Last season, he averaged 9.6 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.
While he is expected to improve upon both of those, stats don’t tell
the whole story about his game. “He’s a tough, physical guy,” says
Baye Moussa Keita, a senior at Syracuse who has played against
Zanna for three seasons in the Big East and will match up against
him again this year in the ACC. “He’s the hustle player. When you
play him, he’s the one who’s going to dive for the loose ball.”
emony. Zanna’s sister and brother-in-law were there, as were members of his host family. Keithline and Pitt Head Coach Jamie Dixon
were there. So was Patterson.
Something intangible happened at this gathering, as this collection
of disparate people from all across the world celebrated Zanna’s
graduation. “We sensed it before. It was becoming an event,” Dixon
says. “The whole family was coming in. We had to kind of organize
it, make sure every one was in the right position. We had to take
(Maimuna Zanna) up, get her to the right spot, because we had it
in an arena with 15,000 people. It was not our typical graduation.”
For Zanna’s A Y\