Biggest Team, Possibly in World, Based On Long Island

Ron Bailey, Publisher

February 28, 2007 – When basketball fans consider what team is the tallest, player by player, on the planet, many rightly consider squads such as the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets – who boast both 7’6” Yao Ming and 7’2” Dikembe Mutombo. If not the Rockets, they go on to analyze the lineups of professional teams across the globe.

And all may be wrong, for in Centereach, NY, there is a high school boasting four student-athletes taller than seven feet tall, one who stands 6’11”, and two others that are a measly 6’6”. These young men, all hailing from southern Sudan, while enduring great challenge and hardship, have enrolled in Our Savior New American School and its basketball program.

“They face a lot of challenges” shared Robert Bass, coach of Our Savior. These include “coming from a war zone”, which of course references the fight for survival many African, non-Muslim people in Sudan’s southern region face, and the attendant problems such a reality creates.

“They are so emotionally scarred” continued Bass, who when pressed for details responded “Ring’s (Ayuel, 7’5” sophomore center) parents were killed…They are dealing, and I should say admirably, with very different things”.

Steven Yien, a 7’3” senior was personally shot, and another player had to flee to Egypt – itself an unpleasant experience for many people from southern Sudan - before traveling to the United States.

Our Savior's Sudanese posse (l. to r.): Teeng Akol, Thon Luony (#4, a junior), John Riek (red jacket), Marial Dhal (red shirt), Ring Ayuel, Steven Yien, and Leek Leek.

On a less involved but more fundemental note, Bass also listed “learning English, which is not easy”, and adjusting to American-style basketball as other concerns. “They came with some basketball understanding. They are not without skills” but haven’t played in a “disciplined program…It’s an acclimation process”.

That’s not to paint a picture of the septet as fundamentally different from other young people, as they are not. “They laugh and joke like everybody else” said the team’s manager and Our Savior’s junior varsity coach, Kyle Bass. “They are pretty easy going”, have arguments, and a sense of humor like young folk worldwide.

That sense of humor was on display during the 4th Annual NCA Classic, when being asked which group of people they belonged to, in Sudan. After having asked who was Dinka – 6’11” junior Teeng Akol, 7’2” senior Marial Dahl, Ayuel, and 6’6” sophomore Leek Leek are – someone posed the timely question “Are you Dinka?”, producing heartfelt laughs.

The younger bass – son of the coach – also shared the guys’ humor has involved the elder Bass as well. “They were constantly saying “What do, my you? (similar to asking ‘How’s it going?’). The Sudanese kids were joking around, and got Coach to say it”.

Presently, Akol and 7’1” sophomore John Riek are the furthest along on the court. Akol can shoot out to about 15 feet and has a number of moves, no doubt developed as he has been here the longest and as such participated in camps such as last year’s NBA Player’s Association Top 100 confab.

Riek on the other hand, is raw offensively, but plays with a passion and aggression that will surely portend success in college; Riek clearly wants to get better, you definitely can’t teach height, and it’s hard to create a sense of passion in players. For his exploits during the NCA event, he would make the All-Classic team.

Coaches from NCAA Division I schools have expressed interest in both Akol and Riek, while Yien is getting looks from Division II colleges and universities.

To improve everyone’s skill set, the staff at Our Savior puts they guys through “a lot of drills, a lot of big man drills” and are in the process of incorporating consistent weight training, said Kyle Bass.

There is no doubt that all these student-athletes will end up in college somewhere: When you go through so much to get an opportunity, rarely is it not maximized.

Who knows, maybe players and coaches, on teams ranging from college to the pros, will be posing the question “What do, my you”.