How Georgia sealed the deal in landing JUCO transfer Pape Diatta

Throughout this past season, Georgia’s basketball team could rely consistently on four players to provide most of the scoring production.

The problem was there was never a fifth — or sixth, or seventh — option who could assist in the scoring load needed to consistently compete against the better teams on the Bulldogs’ schedule.

Needing an offensive boost, Georgia went after and signed junior college small forward Pape Diatta, who spent his first two years at the College of Southern Idaho. Diatta has a unique offensive skill set for someone who is 6-foot-7. He has the ball skills of a point guard with the range of a shooting guard. He can go inside if the matchup presents itself, too. As a sophomore, Diatta averaged 13.0 points and 8.3 rebounds per game, which included a game against Snow College in which he scored 42 points.

Georgia needed a game-changer offensively, and as head coach Mark Fox has said, the Bulldogs were willing to trade his ready-to-go offense for defense that will need to be coached up some.

But Diatta, a native of Senegal, could be the biggest difference maker in a 2016-17 season in which Georgia will hope to return to the NCAA Tournament.

“We thought we needed another playmaker,” Fox said. “We really think he gives us the flexibility to play a lot of different ways, whether it’s to play two small forwards or one big at the same time, or two small forwards, two bigs and J.J. (Frazier). It’s just a lot of flexibility that he will offer us. My staff saw him during the season and loved him. I saw him near the end of the season, and so we’re excited to get him.”

There was a key stretch, in between its two NIT games, when Georgia was able to seal the deal. A day after Georgia’s 93-84 win over Belmont on March 16 in Athens, assistant coach Jonas Hayes took a Delta flight to see Diatta in Twin Falls, Idaho, which included a connecting flight in Salt Lake City.

A day after that visit, it was time to make sure Diatta’s mother knew he would be in good hands. That meant traveling to Dakar, Senegal on March 19, by way of Twin Falls, Idaho, to Salt Lake City to New York to the end destination.

After spending a day in Senegal, Hayes flew back to the United States on March 20 — by way of New York, Los Angeles and eventually Oakland, California, so that he could make Georgia’s second NIT game against St. Mary’s, a 77-65 loss.

Hayes wasn’t made available to comment, but Fox said it was crucial to make the overseas trip to ensure Diatta’s family knew he would be taken care of at Georgia.

“We just felt like it was important for them to see someone from our school,” Fox said. “Obviously, there’s a language barrier but Jonas has a great spirit about him. I think he commented that his mother could sense that. I think it was a real difference for us, as people continue the trend of trying to recruit late, that we did that. Certainly Jonas, he did yeoman’s work there.”

Diatta, along with freshman recruits Tyree Crump and Jordan Harris, enrolled at Georgia in early June and will participate in the summer workout program.

When Diatta signed his national letter-of-intent April 20, he said he did so because of the bond he built with the Georgia coaching staff.

“One of the most important things was the relationship I built with the (Georgia) coaching staff,” Diatta said. “I know they’re in a good league, and I think we can accomplish something great.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2016 at 10:36 AM with the headline "How Georgia sealed the deal in landing JUCO transfer Pape Diatta."