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PSA's Diarra
commits
Texas A&M is a football school in the home office of Football Country.
Hassan Diarra has designs on making a name for the basketball program there, too.
The Putnam Science Academy postgrad announced Oct. 18 that he will attend Texas A&M next year, calling it the right place for him.
“Coach (Buzz) Williams said it’s a football school and that’s the way he likes it,” said Diarra, who had offers from dozens of schools and took official visits to A&M, Georgia, and Indiana. “He wants to build up a program that’s been suffering the last couple of years and he wants me to be the leader of it.”
The Aggies were 14-18 last year and hired Williams as their new coach for this upcoming season. Diarra, a 6-foot-3 point guard from Queens, N.Y., built a very strong relationship with Williams, which weighed heavily in his final decision. Williams spent a lot of time talking with Diarra — a top-50, four-star recruit — about things other than basketball, and spent a lot of time getting to know Diarra’s family. The Aggies were ahead of the wave of heavy recruiting and the full staff was on the PSA campus essentially the minute they were allowed to be this October.
“I like the fact that the whole staff was invested in me and I was a priority to them,” Diarra said. “They were here at like 12:30 a.m. the first day they could come see me, the full staff was here. It just shows that I was a priority and important to them. They wanted me. I was their guy, their No. 1 guy that they wanted.
“That makes you feel special.”
Diarra is likely to see major minutes and play a major role in helping turn the Aggies around. They don’t have a true point guard, which is where Diarra can fit in.
“Coach said nothing is going to be handed to me, that I have to earn it,” Diarra said. “That’s what I like. I don’t want to be given anything. I want to earn everything I get.”
He has certainly earned all the attention he received during the recruiting process. Diarra is set to re-write the PSA record books in his final season. He has been part of a program that has gone 76-6 in his two years and has already won one national championship, two regular season league titles, two league tournament titles.
But it didn’t start out easy for him. His older brother, Mamadou, played at PSA and encouraged the coaching staff to take a look at Hassan. Head coach Tom Espinosa and assistant coach Josh Scraba finally relented, and weren’t overly impressed.
“His first year with us, real good kid, but I didn’t think he was going to play for us,” Espinosa said. “Early last year though, we could see some glimpses of how good he was going to be. And then in the middle of last year, he turned a corner and it was like, ‘This kid is the real deal.’
“Texas A&M got a steal because, and I don’t care what the rankings say, I strongly believe he is the best guard in the country.”
Diarra appreciates the sentiment, but wasn’t resting on that or his announcement.
“This is definitely an exciting day for me,” he said. “It’s been a long journey and I’ve been dreaming about this day for a long time. I’m proud. I’m proud.
“My hard work has paid off but I have to keep working. I don’t want this to be the end of my story.”
By Steve Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
.