How Thierry Darlan went from G League professional to Santa Clara

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Thierry Darlan is a first-time college student at the age of 21 who is taking religion, art history and photography courses this semester at Santa Clara University. This is also the first time the Central Africa Republic native has physically entered a classroom since 2021.

From the CAR to the NBA Africa Academy in Senegal to the G League to, surprisingly, college basketball, Darlan’s hoop dream to make the NBA has been unique, mentally and physically challenging, and now groundbreaking.

“I’ve been through a lot with my injuries and moving from team to team,” Darlan recently told Andscape on Santa Clara’s campus. “All the sacrifices – being on the bench and carrying yourself [professionally], or on those nights when you don’t do good – you come home and the hard part is you are by yourself. No one is around you when you come to your apartment. It’s just you and your shadow. It’s just really hard.

“Your mind asks you, ‘Why don’t you just give up everything?’ The thing I love about myself is I’m never going to give up and I have great people around me. They always encourage me and make sure I’m good and keep giving me advice. I’m really grateful for that and I am staying strong through all those things.”

Darlan made history when he was cleared by the NCAA, as announced on Sept. 23, to play for Santa Clara after playing two G League seasons as a professional. The 6-foot-8 junior guard/forward was granted two years of eligibility – the first G League player ever to be granted such an opportunity.

Darlan will make his debut on Tuesday when Santa Clara hosts Division II Humboldt State. His hope is to finally become an NBA draft pick in 2026, and if he does, expect the emotions to flow.

“I dream about it every day. I think about it every day,’’ Darlan said. “The day that I will get there, I will probably cry a lot.”

So how did Darlan make history by getting cleared to play in college after two pro seasons?

In the young and still evolving Name, Image and Likness era, the NCAA’s decision to allow Darlan to play college basketball has also opened the doors to two former G Leaguers in former G League Ignite guard London Johnson (committed to Louisville) and former Westchester Knicks center Abdullah Ahmed, who is considering college options.

The NCAA has appeared to allow the G League-to-college move in fairness to European professionals being allowed to play college basketball in recent years. For example, Brooklyn Nets rookie guard Egor Demin played for Brigham Young University after playing professionally in Spain for powerhouse Real Madrid.

The G League-to-college basketball trend hasn’t completely been met with well wishes.

“I am not real excited about the NCAA or whoever is making these decisions without talking to us, just letting it go because they’re afraid of getting sued,” renowned Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo recently said to reporters. “To me, it’s ridiculous. To me, it’s embarrassing.”

Santa Clara men’s basketball head coach Herb Sendek offered a different view.

“It would be hard to rationalize how so many other guys [from Europe] were being granted eligibility and [Darlan] wouldn’t,” Sendek told Andscape. “His story is very compelling. So, sure enough, we went through the due diligence of the process and it came back and he was granted two years of college eligibility.”

Said Darlan: “When I was at the NBA Academy [Africa], I heard some guys were going from playing professionally in Europe to sign with colleges in the United States. I was alerted to it already.”

To say Darlan’s journey hasn’t been easy is an understatement.

Darlan comes from CAR’s most known basketball family. Darlan, his grandfather (Pascal Darlan), father (Jean Pascal Darlan) and uncle (Bruno Darlan, the former head coach of the Central Africa Republic’s men’s national basketball team) have all played for the national team.

In 2021, 16-year-old Thierry Darlan left home to go to Saly, Senegal, to join the NBA Academy Africa. Opened in 2018, the NBA Academy Africa has proven to be a top-level basketball training center for the best male and female prospects on the continent. It was there that Darlan not only grew as a basketball player among the likes of Phoenix Suns rookie center Khaman Maluach and former Toronto Raptors center Ulrich Chomche, but he also learned English to go along with his native French.

Growing up, Darlan didn’t dream about the NBA because it seemed unreachable. While the continent of Africa has produced basketball legends Hakeem Olajuwon, Dikembe Mutombo, Joel Embiid and Pascal Siakam, among others, there has never been an NBA player from CAR.

Once Darlan got to the NBA Academy Africa, however, the NBA suddenly seemed possible.

“I never saw myself being in this position, being who I am right now,” Darlan said. “When I was playing basketball back home, it was just for fun. I came from a big basketball family, so everyone was playing basketball. I had the talent, so it was natural for me to start playing basketball.

“But ever since I moved to the NBA Academy Africa, I started to take basketball seriously. I can make it to the NBA. At the NBA Academy Africa, I was with great coaches who were trying to build something with me. I was like, ‘Yeah, I can make it if those people believe in me.’ ”

Darlan earned high praise quickly as an up-and-coming NBA prospect. He made his professional debut in 2022 with Angolan club Petro de Luanda. With a young Darlan as a key contributor, Petro de Luanda advanced to the 2022 Basketball Africa League championship game.

But Darlan’s basketball ascension hit a mammoth roadblock on Feb. 18, 2023, when he dislocated an ankle while playing for the NBA Academy Africa during a Basketball Without Borders Global Showcase at NBA All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City.

Darlan says the ankle injury was a humbling turning point in his journey and he used his faith to mentally get past it.

“If that didn’t happen, I would be in the NBA for sure,” Darlan said. “I feel like most of the time it’s God’s plan. I was disappointed. … When you love basketball and suddenly you have an injury, it really hurts. But that moment, it really helped me to understand that basketball is not promised for us. At any time, you could get hurt.

“During that moment, I really realized that putting my faith in God and trusting the process really helped me get over it. So, in the beginning it was hard mentally because you really couldn’t do nothing. You can’t walk. You [move] with crutches or a wheelchair. I was trying to trust God’s timing in all these things.”

Despite the injury, Darlan considered scholarship offers from Santa Clara, Arizona and Kansas in 2023. Santa Clara assistant men’s basketball associate head coach Jason Ludwig went to Saly, Senegal, to give Darlan his first scholarship offer. Darlan, however, spurned those college opportunities, announcing on March 2, 2023, he was instead suiting up for the G League Ignite with hopes of playing two seasons and entering the 2025 NBA draft.

The team was based near Las Vegas with a primary purpose of developing young players for the NBA. Phoenix Suns guard Jalen Green, Golden State Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga, Atlanta Hawks guard Dyson Daniels, Portland Trail Blazers guard Scoot Henderson, Detroit Pistons forward Ron Holland and Chicago Bulls forward Matas Buzelis are among G League Ignite’s most notable alumni.

During the 2023-24 season, Darlan played sparingly for the Ignite, averaging 4.7 points per game. He also struggled personally on nights when he didn’t play much or at all and leaned primarily on then-Ignite teammate Babacar Sene of Senegal for support.

Darlan hasn’t seen his family from CAR since 2021 and speaks to them on FaceTime and What’s App every weekend. His English also wasn’t as fluent then as it is now.

“I miss them every single day,” Darlan said. “It’s hard, man, leaving your people at a young age and going somewhere else. And you got a new culture and new languages. It’s really hard.”

That 2023-24 season ended up being the Ignite’s last as the NBA decided to end the program because of the emergence of NIL in college basketball. Darlan said Sane explained the news to him.

Darlan felt confused with nowhere to go after the Ignite folded, but he wasn’t ready to give up on his NBA dream and return to Africa. Instead, he played for the G League Delaware Blue Coats last season, averaging 11 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists and 1.1 steals in 25.7 minutes per game.

“I didn’t give up because I know [the NBA] is my destiny,” Darlan said. “All these things happen for a reason. All those things that happened made me a better player, [helped me to] understand the game more, fall in love with the game more. Before I got hurt, I wasn’t paying attention to how you take care of your body, treatment and all the things.

“After I got hurt, I realized your body is what you need to work with and you have to really take care of it. So, all those things really helped me to grow mentally, physically and spiritually.”

Darlan entered his name in the 2025 NBA draft, but it wasn’t a given that he would be selected, so he ultimately withdrew his name on May 30 with the guidance of his agent Todd Ramasar. Darlan lived in Los Angeles last offseason, playing regularly in Philadelphia 76ers assistant coach Rico Hines’s pickup games at UCLA while trying to figure out his next move. Creatively, Ramasar came up with the idea to try to get Darlan college eligibility.

Ramasar convinced Darlan to try the college basketball route instead with a willing suitor in Santa Clara. Ramasar believed that college was where Darlan “really belonged, both for his maturity and development.” Ramasar and Ludwig worked diligently with the help of a lawyer to ultimately open the door for Darlan to come to Santa Clara.

“I was surprised when they told me it really can happen. They said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ ” Darlan said. “They hired a lawyer and all those things and started working on it. And one month after, they just texted me saying, ‘You’re eligible and you can come back and play in college.’ I was like, ‘Really?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ This is a good experience for me.”

Said Ramasar: “Santa Clara was a perfect fit. And I wanted [Darlan] in a strong mid-major environment where he would get an intimate setting, a world-class education and be coached by someone like Herb Sendek, who’s developed NBA players like Jalen Williams and James Harden.”

Santa Clara has sent two players to the NBA in recent years in Williams, a 2024 NBA All-Star with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Golden State Warriors guard Brandon Podziemski. Other standouts in Santa Clara history include Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Steve Nash and former Los Angeles Lakers forward Kurt Rambis. Darlan said he was familiar with Williams, Podziemski and Nash but wasn’t aware that the Golden State Warriors were about a 40-minute drive from Santa Clara.

Darlan hopes to connect in the future with Kuminga, a friend from the Democratic Republic of Congo. While enjoying Santa Clara from a basketball, school and small-town standpoint, Darlan is also in search for a San Francisco Bay Area restaurant with African food similar to what he ate in CAR.

“The weather here is really beautiful,” Darlan said. “Here at Santa Clara, specifically, they don’t have African food. It’s really different. It’s really hard. But they have some Ethiopian food, but I’m not a big fan. Besides that, happy people live here. I like the weather. I don’t know if they have traffic here, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m just on campus.”

Santa Clara’s men’s basketball team is expected to be one to watch in the West Coast Conference this season with Darlan, returning forward Elijah Mahi and three transfers from power conference schools in Gehrig Normand (Michigan State), Chris Tajdo (Iowa), and Aleksander Gavalyugov (Villanova). While Darlan has potential to be the next Bronco to go to the NBA, Sendek hopes his newcomer takes a deep breath and grows after all he has been through.

“He’s obviously a very talented young man who’s had an incredibly challenging path,” Sendek said. “We were just talking about that at whatever age he was, 17, 18, coming from the continent of Africa, being cast into the G League, surviving in that. Then the next thing you know, they [G League Ignite] fold. He’s wondering what’s going to happen with my future.

“Fortuitously, he lands on his feet in college, but now this whole environment is a completely different world for him. Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of that these are young people that have a lot more going on than just basketball. He has to be patient with himself, and those of us who are around him on a daily basis must do the same because he’s had quite a journey.”

The post How Thierry Darlan went from G League professional to Santa Clara appeared first on Andscape.