Recruiting Report: Toumani Camara (2019)
Toumani Camara of Belgium put together an outstanding 17u season with Team Knight out of Florida and now several programs are hoping to be on his short list when Camara returns from a month back home.
In New York City in early July, Camara averaged 13 points a game for Team Knight during their four open period games. Then in LA, competing in the Adidas Summer Championships winning three of five games, Toumani averaged ten points with six boards and three assists. These performances led to more than a dozen July offers and opened the door to a whole new area of opportunity.
Camara arrived in Hollywood, Florida at Chaminade-Madonna College Prep from Belgium two years ago. Team Knight High School Director Marcus McGee describes Camara as the type of player many colleges will hope sign with them this November.
“Toumani is a very versatile wing who shoots lefty but is ambidextrous as he can finish with his right hand,” Coach McGee said. “He is probably one of the best defenders in the country at 6-foot-7 as he can guard every position. Overall he always brought a toughness to our team. High energy, always plays hard, and is always getting better since coming to the States only two years ago.”
Camara is from the capital city of Brussels, Belgium which of course is a major city in Europe with over two million people in the metropolitan area. Toumani left Orlando on the last day of the open period to go home and visit his family and he will remain there through the end of August. When he comes back Toumani will have steps to take towards making a decision, and after a great four months of 17u basketball it’s a decision that will include many programs.
“In April it was Toumani’s first time playing on the shoe circuit,” Coach McGee said. “He got comfortable in the spring and then over Memorial Day I believe a lot of schools hear about his performances and likely saw video of his performances in Chicago. There Toumani was playing against Matthew Hurt, a top five player overall in the country.
“In that game Toumani had 32 points and 17 rebounds against the highly talented D1 Minnesota team. That grabbed everyone’s eyes as the information and video of that game was all over the internet. Then in July a lot of college coaches watched Toumani play with energy, they saw good things, and it just took off from there. He played terrific all of July.”
Minnesota joined Kansas State, Dayton, USF, UCF, St Joseph’s, and a host of others in offering Camara.
“All 26 schools that have offered Toumani are making him a priority,” Coach said. “Even some of the low major schools that may not have as much of a chance now that bigger programs are in this, they are still giving him calls.
“This has all happened so fast. Toumani went from not having a single offer in April to 26 offers with the likes of Minnesota, Iowa State, Virginia, it’s all across the board as it all happened so fast.”
Camara doesn’t have any visits set as this process is still pretty new for him. Toumani is back home researching the programs that are showing interest and he will start looking into visits when he returns to the States.
“Toumani is learning the college coaching system here and now he is taking his time overseas to do his research about all the schools and learn more about the programs. He is able to text with schools and us now, but when he comes back we will be able to talk about the schools and when he comes back he will have already learned more about the programs. It will be a slow, long process as Toumani is just learning.”