Raider sophomore shooter putting in the work

For one particular Three Rivers basketball player, the journey has definitely had its bumps in the road, but slowly, surely, the smoothness is showing itself in Poplar Bluff.

Milwaukee native Mo Niang, a sophomore transfer from Eastern Arizona Junior College in Thatcher, Arizona, came to Poplar Bluff after quite the battle just to find his way onto the court and then once he did, finding the fit he believed could make him a better player.

All signs say that the process is happening in front of the Three Rivers faithful’s eyes.

Niang is averaging 12.6 ppg on 36.5 percent field goal shooting — including 34.7 percent from beyond the arc — while averaging slightly under five boards a game.

Niang headed to Thatcher after a senior year of high school that saw his final potential season on the prep hardwood wiped out due to the COVID-19 pandemic when the city and much of that area of the Midwest was forced to make some hard decisions.

For Niang, it has been a labor of love. He enjoys the sport and works hard at it, according to Three Rivers head coach Brian Bess, and he has come here looking to expand his game as a basketball version of a one-timer specialist:

The catch-and-shoot scorer.

“In the preseason coaches told me to get my shot quicker, so I would try to make somewhere around 500 to 1,000 shots a day,” Niang said. “Now as the season is going I try to get 300. It depends on the day I work on different spots.”

Bess vouches for the work ethic Niang has brought to the team’s culture and has appreciated his young player’s handle on things.

“He probably puts the most work on the team and spends the most time in the gym,” Bess said. “He has improved and is our best catch-and-shoot player. He is such a great kid because he has been raised well. They are not interfering with anything or bailing him out and babying him at all.”

Niang does want to develop his game more in the upcoming months ahead as he hopes to find his way to a four-year program after this campaign wraps up.

“I want to get better at everything, but I really want to improve my finishing and my playmaking so I can make my teammates better,” Niang said. “I feel like I’ve gotten better at my shooting and my decisions on when to shoot and the right time.”

Niang started playing the game “seriously” in sixth grade and he slowly tried to make his name at his school in Milwaukee, bidding his time to break through.

“First couple of years I didn’t get much playing time but we had a lot of good players and they were seniors,” Niang said. “I started playing a little bit in my junior year. My senior year was the year I was going to play a lot and then it got canceled due to COVID.

“I went to some fall showcases and a league I had played in. That’s where the Eastern Arizona coach saw me at.”

Niang admits he was worried his hopes of having his day on the court would never happen due to the pandemic and his slow roll toward becoming a factor in the game.

“There is a difference between knowing how to hoop and knowing basketball and I was just a hooper,” Niang said. “I could get buckets, but I didn’t know the little things. My senior year would have helped me with that because the more you play, the more you learn.

“I was flashy and I was told I dribble too much and I would shoot from very far out and (coach) didn’t like it.”

Niang headed to Thatcher and averaged over 16 points a night but left the EAC program after his coach exited the program to lead a program in Texas. That coach pointed Niang toward Three Rivers and Region XVI which the Raider says is a better level of competition than the ACCAC which Arizona schools participate in.

“There are better guards and it is more physical,” Niang said. “There are more dawgs in this conference. You can tell they are hungry.”

Niang has been fed plenty in Poplar Bluff and with the Raiders program.

“My experience is that I’ve learned a lot — years’ worth of stuff just being here,” Niang said. “I now have started really playing basketball. I’m just now learning how to win. You step into the Libla, and you just think about winning. Everything you see — the gym, the building (former coach) Gene Bess — you step in here, you don’t know how to explain the feeling, but the first thing you think is you have to win.

“And Poplar Bluff is cool. It’s not like Milwaukee and Chicago. It’s more peaceful and Fazoli’s is good.”