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yracuse fans haven’t seen the Bourama Sidibe that they expected. They haven’t seen the player who can drive to the basket from the top of the key or jump around the gym. That Sidibe, the four-star recruit, disappeared before his freshman season when he was diagnosed with tendonitis in his left knee.

While Sidibe never missed more than seven games in a season, the injury has impacted his play for the past two years. It’s limited his explosion off the ground and sometimes even prevented him from running up and down the floor. Sidibe, who hasn’t averaged more than 12.4 minutes in a season, likely would’ve rested more during his freshman year had the team possessed another option for a big man, he said.

Now like the two seasons prior, Syracuse has little choice but to use Sidibe in the rotation. Paschal Chukwu, the man Sidibe spent the last two years spelling time for, graduated, leaving Sidibe as the oldest among a center group which includes two freshmen. Despite surgery after his freshman season and two years of balancing rehab and gameplay, Sidibe’s still not 100% healthy. Perhaps, he never will be. But if the 6-foot-10-inch big man from Mali can flash the skills which brought him to SU, the Orange may have an answer to their perplexing front court situation.

“There’s a Bourama you guys haven’t seen yet that’s going to unleash real soon,” said Mark Taylor, Sidibe’s high school coach at St. Benedict’s Preparatory (New Jersey) School.

Before coming to the United States, Sidibe learned to play basketball in Spain at the Canterbury School, an English-language school located in the Canary Islands. At 13, Sidibe arrived in Spain at 6-foot-6, 147 pounds of raw talent. He couldn’t shoot well then, often using two hands and struggled to handle the ball.

Santiago Lopez Hernandez, the head coach at Canterbury, trained Sidibe to play from anywhere on the court. Sidibe learned the traditional post moves a player his height could use and also how to play facing the basket.

Canterbury’s offense was fluid, often interchanging the traditional four and five positions. This allowed Sidibe to drive to the basket from near the 3-point line, run the fast break and sometimes even hit shots from beyond the arc.

A highlight tape from Sidibe’s flaunts him as a stretch four. The first section of the tape, titled “Fast break,” shows Sidibe repeatedly running the length of the floor and flushing dunks or layups. On some plays, he even dribbles by opponents in transition before pulling the ball up close to his body and carrying forward with a step or two toward the basket.

“That’s how I grew up in basketball,” Sidibe said. “Actually moving around, not standing in the zone waiting for somebody to give me the ball then finish it.”

Sidibe was known for his athleticism at St. Benedict’s, too. Taylor recalls Sidibe’s speed as his most impressive attribute including his ability to recoil on a jump, often tipping in his own missed layups. It’s a skill few big men have, Taylor said.

St. Benedict’s didn’t do any official measurements of speed. Still, Sidibe’s explosiveness was evident in drills. In one exercise, coaches ricocheted the ball off the backboard and players chased after it. The first player to the ball wouldn’t run extra. Sidibe rarely ran.

“He can drive by guys, especially big guys,” Taylor said. “When he catches the ball at the elbow, he’s very quick to the rim.”

Sidibe flashed his abilities sparingly at Syracuse. In his freshman season, he scored 18 points and snagged 16 rebounds in a January game against Pittsburgh. His 28 minutes would remain a career-high across the next two seasons.

“Bourama’s a junior, he’s never played here,” head coach Jim Boeheim said. “Two years he didn’t play. Played one game, two games maybe in two years. So he’s just starting out.”

Sidibe played through pain for all of his first two seasons, he said. Some games, he’d look down the court knowing he couldn’t make it back without lumbering in agony.

Tendonitis often spawns from overuse and is known as jumper’s knee, most often occurring in sports where athletes jump repeatedly on hard surfaces, like basketball, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Sidibe squats every other day now, often doing leg extensions and curls as well. All are meant to strengthen the muscles around his knee. But the best remedy may have come this summer when he returned to Mali for two months and barely touched a basketball.

He arrived back to Syracuse in July and felt rejuvenated. The trainers noticed he moved better on the court. Teammates acknowledged he could attack the rim better. In Italy, albeit against inferior opponents, he tallied a 17-rebound game and finished another with a double-double.

“The way he was moving, the way he was rebounding it was just like, ‘wow this is a different guy, different player,’” Syracuse guard Elijah Hughes said.

In Syracuse’s final tune-up before the regular season, Sidibe showed flashes of the player he can be. He finished putback opportunities off rebounds — sometimes from the paint, others following the shooter down the lane. He swung his legs past defenders and finished layups when teammates dished him the ball. And when it came time to run the court, he barreled down the middle of the paint and snagged a missed 3-pointer.

He still didn’t move enough on the court at times, Boeheim said after the scrimmage. The Syracuse system is different than ones Sidibe has played in the past. Entering his third season, the center is still learning his place with the Orange. He doesn’t get the ball as often and needs to create for himself off the offensive boards rather than the possession running through him.

“I feel like I’m not fully there yet but like it’s a process I’m on my way,” Sidibe said.

Sidibe may never be the player he could’ve been before tendinitis. It’s too hard to tell if his aggravated injury will return in full force once more. At least for now, he has his bounce back.

Banner photo by Corey Henry | Photo Editor