For the next step of his young Arizona basketball career, slender 7-footer Christian Koloko may be asked Thursday to guard one of two imposing Oregon centers in front of the most intimidating crowd the Wildcats have faced this season.
For him, that’s nothing.
Imagine being a French-speaking high school junior from Africa, shipped halfway across the world to Los Angeles at the height of your teenage transition years because you have basketball potential, then trying to fit quickly into a new team, new culture and new language.
At first, Koloko didn’t.
“I knew the basics, but I couldn’t have a conversation with someone,” Koloko said last fall of his first month at Birmingham High School in the San Fernando Valley.