{"id":2304,"date":"2016-08-30T12:38:19","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T16:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=2304"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:49","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:49","slug":"the-quiet-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2016\/08\/the-quiet-man\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quiet Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>smael \u201cIsh\u201d Sanogo\u2019s importance to the Seton Hall men\u2019s basketball team can\u2019t be measured in a nightly box score or in the season-ending statistics. As a sophomore on the 2015-16 team, Sanogo averaged just five points per game. But without Sanogo\u2019s contributions, the Pirates would have never become the BIG EAST Conference Tournament champions.<\/p>\n

During the season, head coach Kevin Willard called Sanogo the hardest-working kid he had ever coached. And the 6-foot-8 Sanogo\u2019s toughness is especially evident on defense, where he battles centers or guards, big guys or little ones, fast ones or powerful ones. Those efforts are difficult to measure, but his teammates and coach appreciate his unusual skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave us so many options on the defensive end,\u201d Willard says. \u201cWe could switch pick and rolls, we could trap pick and rolls. \u2026 He\u2019s a very smart young man and he studies the game. I know for me he was almost like a security blanket. \u2018We can do this because Ish is out here.\u2019 And that\u2019s as good a compliment as I can give to a player.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sanogo performed like that at East Side High School in Newark, but as a freshman with the Pirates he didn\u2019t play much. He felt frustrated, but did what he\u2019s always done: \u201cI could complain, but I knew if I kept working hard I\u2019d get to where I am now. Because of my past experiences, I realized I had to work to get to where I wanted.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Those past experiences off the court are why he feels comfortable handling anything on it. Originally from the Ivory Coast, Sanogo lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and moved to Chicago before settling in New Jersey. \u201cGoing through all that made me grow up early and realize nothing is ever guaranteed,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sanogo picked up the nickname \u201cIsh\u201d in New Jersey, and it was at East Side where he displayed the defensive intensity that enticed Willard and his coaching staff.
\n<\/span>\u201cYou saw it in high school when you\u2019d watch them practice. He always played the hardest and was always the toughest kid out there,\u201d Willard says. \u201cAnybody who works that hard and plays that hard is going to end up being a good player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanogo\u2019s long arms and quick feet make him an elite defender, but \u201ca lot of it is mental,\u201d he adds. It\u2019s about studying film and knowing an opponent\u2019s strengths and weaknesses. \u201cPeople say I\u2019m able to guard guards; that\u2019s because if you think like a guard you\u2019ll be able to stop them. You know what their next move is.\u201d And when he battles bigger players, \u201cI have to be able to use my quickness and beat them to the spot. That\u2019s again when I have to outsmart them and know where they\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those abilities helped Seton Hall capture the 2016 BIG EAST title with a dramatic victory in Madison Square Garden over Villanova, a triumph that looked even more impressive a few weeks later when the Wildcats won the national title. Watching Villanova win the NCAA championship convinced Sanogo and his teammates they could compete with anyone in the country and could have made a similar run in the tournament if they hadn\u2019t had an opening-round loss to Gonzaga. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the offseason, knowing the Pirates need more from him if they want to duplicate their 2016 success, Sanogo has been dedicating himself to improving on the offensive end, believing the work ethic he used to become a shutdown defender will transform him into a dangerous shooter. \u201cHe\u2019s already putting the work in,\u201d Willard says. \u201cAs he gets as much confidence in his offensive game as he has with his defensive game, I think you\u2019re going to see another nice jump with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe then the statistics and box scores will reflect just how valuable Sanogo is to Seton Hall.<\/p>\n

By Shawn Fury<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ismael \u201cIsh\u201d Sanogo\u2019s importance to the Seton Hall men\u2019s basketball team can\u2019t be measured in a nightly box score or in the season-ending statistics. As a sophomore on the 2015-16 team, Sanogo averaged just five points per game. But without Sanogo\u2019s contributions, the Pirates would have never become the BIG EAST Conference Tournament champions.<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingThe Quiet Man<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3428,"featured_media":2342,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[258,10,6],"tags":[71,69,70],"class_list":["post-2304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-2015-2019","category-sports","category-students","tag-basketball","tag-ish","tag-ismael-sanogo","ratio-2-1","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2304"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2313,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions\/2313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}