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As a junior on last year’s PSA varsity basketball team, Abdul Seck was an energy guy. He made the hustle plays, did the dirty work. One of those role player-types. He had a lot of older teammates, and he often deferred to them and their seniority.
This year, Abdul Seck is taking a backseat to no one. The guard from Queens, N.Y., is averaging a team-high 22.7 points per game, helping Putnam Science Academy win five of its first six games (he was taking the SATs Dec. 7 and missed Game No. 7, a loss). And his explanation of how he’s made the jump is pretty simple.
“It’s all confidence,” he said. “I always knew I was able to do this but I just knew I wouldn’t be able to do it if my confidence wasn’t up. I worked on all parts of my game this summer to give me more confidence.
“If I miss a shot, I don’t think about it and just get on to the next play. Last year, I would be hesitant. I wouldn’t know if I should pass it or shoot it, and if I did shoot, it wouldn’t be with confidence, so it would be a miss. Now I just let it fly.”
Teammate Zach Boulay saw Seck concede shots on a lot of occasions last year. But he noticed a different guy during open gyms in the preseason.
“Last year, he had a lot of older kids with him,” Boulay said. “This year though, he’s really showing that he can play. You could see, he looked really good in the preseason in open runs, even with the prep guys.
“He definitely improved his jumpshot. And he’s got a lot more confidence. You can see his confidence with the ball. He’s able to take people off the dribble and create for himself very well this year. That makes a he difference for him.”
PSA coach Dana Valentine kept in touch with Seck over the summer and knew the hard work that was being done. So when he took the floor for the first time in the preseason, Valentine expected to see some improvement.
But what he saw caught him a bit off-guard. He wasn’t expecting back-to-back 30-point games sandwiched between 23 points in the season-opener and 21 against Commonwealth Academy.
“The 30-point games, I didn’t necessarily expect him to make that kind of jump,” Valentine said. “But it’s great to see his hard work paying off. He deserves the success he’s having right now.”
Seck is considering his options for next year. Colleges have shown some interest in him to this point; a few more games likes the ones he’s been having and they will be forced to show more. He played high school ball at Francis Lewis in Queens, and admits he wasn’t prepared for the step up in competition level. He wasn’t used to not being one of the top players on the court.
So he did something about it.
“I knew there were a lot of guys better than me on this level so I knew I had to work to get better,” he said. “I knew I just needed the confidence to become a better player. Now I just have to keep doing it and get better.”
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
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