Inside The Huskies

Portal Brings UW in Contact with Another Player with Ivory Coast Background

Jack Doumbia spent this past season with Wright State in Ohio.

Dan Raley

Norfolk State's forward Jack Doumbia (33) brings the ball up court against Tennessee's Josiah-Jordan James.
Norfolk State's forward Jack Doumbia (33) brings the ball up court against Tennessee's Josiah-Jordan James. / Randy Sartin-Imagn Images

Jack Doumbia grew up in Africa, in the Ivory Coast seaport of Abidjan, which is some 5.6 million people strong, and this is where he learned to play basketball.

With 11 brothers and sisters at home, his chore as a youngster was to get up at 6 a.m. and go to the market to buy bread for the family, working on his game all the way.

“I took my ball with me and dribbled through the neighborhood the whole way there and back," Doumbia told the Dayton Daily News. “There was a park in front of my mom’s house and I’d end up stopping and taking a few shots before I went to the market, and then again before I got the bread home.”

This routine eventually turned him into an American college basketball player -- and he's still shopping.

On Monday, the 6-foot-6, 195-pound Doumbia entered the transfer portal looking for a new place to play after spending this past season with Wright State in Ohio, two years at Norfolk State in Virginia, a season each at community colleges in Kansas and Florida, and a pair of high schools.

He shared with Recruits Zone that Danny Sprinkle's University of Washington basketball team was among the first 10 schools to reach out to him. Memphis, Tulane and North Carolina-Wilmington are among the others showing interest.

Should the Huskies convince him to come to Montlake, they would have two players with Ivory Coast connections on the roster.

UW freshman forward Dominique Diomande, while calling Tours, France, his home, previously has played for Ivory Coast junior national teams.

Doumbia, 23, is just coming into his own at the college level. This past season for a 15-18 Wright State team, he averaged 11.6 points and 5.7 rebounds per outing while starting 11 of 33 games.

In a first-round Horizon League tournament game against IU Indy, a 98-85 victory, he had 23 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists.

While living for more than a decade in the Ivory Coast, Doumbia actually was American born before his parents chose to move back to Africa.

Yet at 16, he gave up his daily bread runs and returned to the United State to pursue his basketball dreams, not to mention giving up Ivory Coast playing conditions that could be a challenge.

“We played barefoot on courts in the parks all day long,” he said. “It could be 100 degrees and we were out there playing barefoot.”

Should he consider coming this way, Doumbia will be happy to know Seattle is much more temperate and just about everyone wears basketball shoes when they play. And the bakeries aren't bad.

To get the latest UW basketball and football news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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