Mane takes “calculated gamble”, will remain in upcoming NBA Draft

Montrealer and Vanier College guard Karim Mane announced his intentions to remain in the 2020 NBA Draft Thursday night.

The 20-year old released a video on his Twitter page thanking his coaches, teammates, and family for supporting him throughout his collegiate career.

“My basketball journey has been very special from the beginning. I want to thank all the schools that have recruited me over the last couple of years.” Mane said.

The six-foot-five guard told ESPN in April that he had submitted paperwork to the NBA to make himself eligible for the upcoming draft, but hadn’t closed the door on playing university basketball.

The guard received interest from a number of NCAA Division I schools, including Kansas, Michigan State, Texas, and Florida.

Vanier College head coach Andrew Hertzog, who announced he would be taking a one-year sabbatical in May, learned of Mane’s intentions to remain in the draft Thursday morning. He called Mane’s decision a “calculated gamble.”

“He’s gotten input from a lot of people and he’s a very bright young man who is very studious and very deliberate about what he does. This was not a rash decision. This is something he thought about for quite some time,” Hertzog said.

Hertzog says nearly two-thirds of the NBA’s teams have contacted him to know more about Mane, and adds that his star player has been in interviews with some of those teams.

Mane was born in Senegal, but moved to Montreal in 2007 when he was seven. He didn’t start playing basketball until he was 12. 

Hertzog says he is proud of Mane for entering the draft while being a good representative for his school.

But he also hopes Mane’s decision will encourage fellow Quebec basketball players to stay home in favour of playing for U.S.-based schools.

“One of the biggest problems with our league, I feel in the last few years, is that some of the better talent in Quebec has left for prep schools, high schools in the States. And now there’s more and more of them elsewhere in Canada, particularly in Ontario, and they come over and they’re recruiting our kids constantly,” Hertzog said.

“A lot of kids feel they have to go to these schools in order to get seen and get NCAA Division I scholarships and that’s just not the case.”

Mane was named a Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association All-Canadian in 2019 and 2020, and represented Team Canada at the 2019 U19 FIBA world championships in Greece, where he averaged nearly 12 points a game along with 4.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists.

With Vanier College , Mane won two Quebec conference titles.

The 2020 NBA Draft will take place Oct. 16.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 17, 2020.

The Canadian Press