Belgian Native Lecomte Leading Way for No. 2 Bears
1/7/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
Belgium is known for waffles and chocolate. As far as sports of choice, basketball ranks a distant fifth behind soccer, cycling, tennis and running, and just barely ahead of field hockey.
"It is not a big deal, not at all," said Baylor junior Manu Lecomte, a native of Brussels, Belgium, who's in his first year as starting point guard for the No. 2-ranked Bears (14-0). "Actually, nobody played basketball in my family, except for my uncle. And he was really more of a coach. I started playing basketball when I was 4, thanks to him. If it wasn't for him, I probably would have played soccer."
Instead, little Emmanuel Lecomte started tagging along with his uncle, Nicolas Joostens, to his team's basketball practices when he was 4 years old.
"He was following me when I was practicing with my team, and he was falling in love with basketball," said Joostens, part of a Belgium contingent that followed Lecomte and the Bears for their Big 12 opener at Oklahoma and Wednesday's 65-63 win at home over Iowa State. "Manu said to me when he was 10 years old, 'My dream is to play in the NBA.'''
The problem is that Belgium is not exactly a key recruiting stop for most college basketball programs. Lecomte originally signed with the University of Miami ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" basically sight unseen ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" because one of their assistant coaches, Michael Huger, had played pro ball in Belgium.
"Miami was one of the only schools that offered me," said Lecomte, who played for Mons-Hainant Belfius and also played on Belgium's U16, U18 and U20 teams. "(Huger) was one of the best point guards when he played pro in Belgium, so he knew my coaches and that's how he heard about me. But, he had never seen me play. He just asked them, 'Is he good enough?' Then, I got offered, and it was a great opportunity."
Lecomte had a productive two seasons at Miami, starting 40 of the 71 games he played and averaging 7.8 points and 2.0 assists while ranking second in school history with a 43.4 3-point shooting percentage. The Hurricanes finished 25-13 during his sophomore campaign in 2014-15, losing to Stanford in the NIT championship game.
But, at the end of that season, he decided it was "time for me to find another team."
"I had a great experience at Miami," he said. "I played in the ACC, obviously one of the top conferences in the country. But, I felt like it was time for me to find another team. And when I heard that Baylor wanted me to come here, there was no doubt that I wanted to play for Coach (Scott) Drew."
The irony is that about six years earlier, Manu "fell in love with the color of the shirts at Baylor," his uncle said, and started following the Bears as they made deep postseason runs.
One day after Lecomte's name showed up on an NCAA transfer list, he got a visit in Miami from former Baylor assistant, Grant McCasland, now the head coach at Arkansas State.
"Coach Mac is a great guy, a great coach, and I just had a great feeling about him and the program," Lecomte said.
As a Division I transfer, Lecomte had to sit out last season, which he said was "mentally tough."
"I've been playing since I was 4, and I've always, always wanted to play," he said. "My family was like, 'Are you ready to just sit out a year? You? You want to sit out a year?' But, I thought it was a great opportunity. It was worth it. And I think it shows this year. I'm happy with my decision."
It certainly wasn't a year off. While playing on the practice scout team with 7-footer Jo Lual-Acuil and freshman guard Chuck Mitchell, Lecomte worked on creating his own shot off the dribble and becoming a better vocal leader.
"I think that's one of the main reasons why we have a great chemistry, especially me and Jo," he said. "We always hang out with each other. I know what he wants, I kow what gets him frustrated, so I can talk to him at all times. Even with (Johnathan Motley), seeing him play and playing with him. I've never had a better chemistry with my bigs, ever."
Taking over the point guard role that was handed down from Pierre Jackson to Kenny Chery to Lester Medford, Lecomte has averaged 11.4 points and 5.1 assists and continued his hot shooting from 3-point range (37.9 percent) and the free-throw line (80.5).
Along with Motley, Lual-Acuil and the senior leadership of Ishmail Wainright, Lecomte is a big reason why the Bears are off to a 14-0 start, 2-0 in Big 12 and ranked second nationally going into Saturday's 6 p.m. game against Oklahoma State (10-4, 0-2).
A signature moment came in Wednesday's win at home over Iowa State. With the game on the line, the 5-11 guard hit a fadeaway jumper from the baseline over 6-5 Matt Thomas, giving the Bears a 65-63 lead with 8.6 seconds left. Until then, Lecomte was just 2-for-9 and had turned it over four times in arguably his roughest outing of the year.
"The whole game, I couldn't make shots, but my teammates kept believing in me," he said. "Coach Drew kept me in the game, so I just had to keep shooting."
Despite Lecomte's shooting woes in the game, sophomore guard Jake Lindsey said he knew it was going in as soon as he took the shot.
"We've seen him hit that," Lindsey said. "Everyone's like, 'Man, that was a tough shot.' But, I've seen Manu hit tougher shots on me every day in practice. I think that's part of it is he's just very confident. His pull-up is probably second to none, kind of reminds a lot of people of Kenny Chery. Kenny liked the right elbow, Manu will pull back. They're a little different, but he's got that gravity of personality. Even though he doesn't say a whole lot, he doesn't have to, because we feed off that."
The NBA dream is still alive and well, but Lecomte also wants to go back to play for the Belgium National team this summer.
"I always want to go back," he said. "I've been doing it since I was 15, and I just want to keep doing it every year. The name on your back doesn't matter, you play for your country. And there's nothing like that."
With top-ranked Villanova's 66-58 loss to Butler earlier this week, Lecomte and the Bears would likely move up to the No. 1 spot for the first time in school history with a win in Saturday's game at home against Oklahoma State.
"Bigger goals always trump the smaller goals," Drew said. "And the bigger goals aren't to be ranked No. 1 right now. The bigger goals are every team wants to win a conference championship, every team wants to get to a Final Four. We know that each and every day we have to get better to reach those goals. Is it nice being ranked and people talking well of you? I think everybody would rather have that than the other way. But we know that the bigger goals are more important."
