Abou Ousmane: The traveling man

He’s gone – again.

Abou Ousmane has his bags packed – where he ends up is anyone’s guess.

But the 6-foot-10 basketball performer will not be hard to find.

He has been on a basketball sojourn for the last few years. Let us take a quick look.

He played for Todd Myles at Brooklyn’s Paul Robeson High School, and then he was at Putnam Science Academy (Putnam, Conn.) in the 2018-19 season, where he averaged 10.3 points and 6.7 rebounds per-game.

He then led his Scotland Performance Institute (Scotland, Pa.) squad to a 40-4 record while averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds per game. In fact, he carried those Knights to a GAC championship with 32 points and 22 rebounds in the finals.

Next stop — a freshman at North Texas State, where he helped the Green Machine win the 2021 Conference USA Tournament. He stayed for another season in Denton, Texas, averaging more than 10 points per game for a team that won the Conference USA regular-season championship and reached the second-round of the 2022 NIT, losing in overtime to Virginia, despite a 16-point effort from Ousmane.

Ousmane entered the transfer portal after that season and committed to Cincinnati’s Xavier University.

“I wanted to win,” he told the Cincinnati Enquirer at the time, on his decision to move again. “I knew Xavier was coming off a run in the Sweet 16, and I wanted an offensive-minded coach like Sean (Miller) to steer me in the right direction.”

Ousmane is still looking for that right direction.

Last week he again placed his name in the transfer portal — and only he knows what’s next.

In 34 games this last season for the Musketeers of Xavier — 29 starts — Ousmane averaged 6.7 points and a team-high 6.4 rebounds per game. Perhaps his thoughts were that Xavier was looking to add size in the portal, and his playing time would be diminished.

Wherever he lands, he credits his Brooklyn background for his basketball success. “It is…