This story originally appeared in The Stampede, the official publication of the University of Colorado Buff Club.
Doubt is never a part of the equation for Thomas Akyazili. The freshman from Belgium always has been comfortable with his decision to move one-third of the way around the world to attend college and play basketball at the University of Colorado.
He is where he belongs at the moment, in Boulder, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some tough days when he misses family and friends and the tastes and smells of home.
When those difficult moments come, Akyazili deals with them by further investing in the reasons he made the move in the first place. He heads for the basketball court or the books.
There have been more than a few occasions since he arrived at CU this summer that Akyazili has found himself alone in the Coors Events Center working on his game at odd hours without teammates or coaches. In those moments, he isn’t thinking about his mother, father or brother or the friends he left behind in Antwerp, Belgium, to come to America. In those moments, he’s working on keeping his dribble out of the reach of defenders and knocking down jumpers from every conceivable spot on the floor where the ball might find him in a Pac-12 Conference game later this season.
You might say the basketball court is his comfort zone and home away from home.
“For sure living without my family and friends, I speak to them almost every day, in text messages or something,” Akyazili said of the challenges of going so far from home for school. “That’s the hardest part.”
Akyazili grew up in a part of the world crazy for soccer and not much else when it comes to sports. He is the son of a mother who works with troubled youth and a father who works as a private driver. He lived with his mother and brother. His parents are separated but his father lived only a few minutes away and always has been a big part of his life.
Now, he finds himself nearly 8,000 miles away from them while trying to thrive on and off the court in a new culture; it has some similarities, but also plenty of differences to the life he knew.
Colorado coaches first became aware of Akyazili when he attended an elite camp for guards in 2014 hosted in the Bay Area by Golden State Warriors star and reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry. The camp is not an approved evaluation camp under NCAA rules, so coach Tad Boyle and other college coaches were not allowed to attend.
Akyazili, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound combination guard, was the only foreign player invited to the camp. College coaches not being able to attend and evaluate him firsthand was a problem for the young guard, who, like so many before him, was hoping to find opportunity in the United States. But Boyle had contacts who were able to be inside the doors and evaluate the talent on hand. Word got back to the CU staff that the Buffs should do their homework on Akyazili.
“People weren’t really sure if he was going to come over and play college basketball or stay and sign a professional contract,” Boyle said. “A lot of the kids in those foreign countries have that option. They don’t have the college [option]. Over there it’s pro ball or it’s nothing.
“We started recruiting him and a lot of that was through email. We actually never made a trip to Belgium. We saw him on film and pulled the trigger.”
Akyazili visited St. John’s in New York on the same trip before coming to Colorado. He chose the Buffs because he loved the campus, the community and the close-knit vibe he felt from the team. He visited CU in February and watched the Buffs lose handily to Arizona, but Akyazili was sold on much more than just the game.
“For me, what I have experienced here is more than basketball,” Akyazili said. “The team is like a family. It’s amazing. That’s one of the things I really like about this place. The team off the court and on the court is both really good.”
Colorado’s 2014-15 season was a disappointing one to be sure. Boyle never shies away from saying so and always has been upfront about what he believes last season’s team was lacking. Players were afraid to hold each other accountable, leaving coaches to be the bad guys all the time. The team also struggled to shoot from the perimeter and it played defense inconsistently. Boyle believes all of it traced back to a lack of toughness.
He found himself searching for that characteristic in recruits he evaluated throughout last season and the spring, knowing he would have several scholarships to fill for this season’s team. In watching film of Akyazili and talking with people who had seen him in person, Boyle and his staff became convinced Akyazili was just the kind of character and had the necessary self-confidence to help the team in ways it needed most.
His extensive experience playing internationally at the U-16, U-18 and U-20 levels gave Boyle confidence that Akyazili would handle the transition well and wouldn’t have a problem competing against players who are three or four years older than him.
Boyle also believes he found similar attributes in big man Kenan Guzonjic, a product of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who played junior college basketball in Midland, Texas.
“When you ask, ‘Why did we go overseas?’” Boyle said, “The two things that we wanted to add to our team this year that I think were lacking last year was skill — the ability to pass and dribble and shoot the ball at a high level — and the other was toughness. I think both these kids bring skill and toughness to our team that is going to make us better. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have any tough kids last year. Just top to bottom, I didn’t think we were skilled enough and tough enough.”
“The biggest difference I think you’re going to see from our team this year relative to last year is the ability to shoot the ball from a lot of different positions.”
So where did Akyazili get the toughness his coaches value so much?
“I think it’s just in me from how I grew up,” he said. “Same being here away from my family that is like on the other side of the world. I feel like I have to. That makes me tough. Things like that. I try to do that on the court, too.”
Akyazili also brings versatility to the CU roster. Boyle believes he’ll be able to use him at point guard in addition to Dominique Collier and Xavier Talton. Akyazili can also play shooting guard because of his ability to knock down open jump shots.
Akyazili admits it was only natural to wonder how his skills might stack up next to his new teammates and future opponents when he arrived in America. He had confidence he’d be able to settle in quickly and play well because he had played with and against former American college players with his club team, the Antwerp Giants, back in Belgium.
But he needed to see for himself to be sure.
He said his confidence was buoyed and he felt even better about his decision to come to CU after playing pick-up games with his new teammates in the summer when he first came to town. He knew then he could thrive here, but he also recognized some shortcomings in his game.
“Yeah, so of course most people are more athletic than me here,” he said. “I’m not the most athletic player here. So I thought maybe it was going to be a problem, but I think I can make it up in other aspects of the game.”
There will be some adjustments for sure. One will be getting used to playing in front of large crowds on a regular basis. Akyazili said he once played in front of 15,000 fans in special club game, but most games don’t attract nearly that many fans back home.
Akyazili speaks three languages, Dutch, French and English and he has had a chance to use all three in his first months on campus in Boulder. He has met numerous other students from Europe and, so far, one other Belgian. He said it was somewhat awkward to speak to her in Dutch because both had already grown to accustomed to speaking English almost exclusively each day. Still, having that connection to home was reassuring and refreshing.
“When I came here, I was really amazed by the people and how friendly they are,” Akyazili said. “In Belgium when you don’t know anybody and walk by them, you don’t say anything. Here they all ask, ‘How are you?’ It’s just easy to talk to people. I like that a lot.”
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