Nebrasketball Player Profile: Yvan Ouedraogo

Frenchman Yvan Ouedraogo (pronounced Ivan way-drah-O-go) comes to Nebraska out of Bordeaux, France. He will be the first Husker basketball player in program history from France. Bearing this in mind, I hope he brings a pipeline for smuggling in quality wine at discount rates for the wine-o’s in Lincoln.

On a serious note, the 6’9” 17 year old freshman comes to Nebraska as a top-150 recruit per 24/7. Ouedraogo chose Nebraska over offers from Georgia Tech, TCU, and Vanderbilt. While he is already 260 pounds, Hoiberg and staff learned after he arrived on campus that he had never had a formal weight lifting program back home. So expect him to quickly tone/bulk-up between now and the start of next season as he continues to mature, being one of the younger players in the country at only 17 still.

Ouedraogo was unable to join Nebraska in Italy as he was busy playing for France in the FIBA U18 European Championships. Coming in off the bench he averaged 4.0 points and 3.6 rebounds while averaging almost 15 minutes per game.

Ouedraogo has a lot of upside as a freshman for the Huskers. However, being a young player coming in from over-seas, there will likely be an adjustment period. Tempo, spacing, and flow of the game are all different in the US than in Europe. Given these factors combined with his youth, don’t be surprised if Yvan sees a more limited role this season.

Having said that, expect to see a lot of Yvan Ouedraogo over the next few years given his shooting and rebounding prowess. Once he has a year in the system and in the weight room, he should develop into quite the beast as small forward or power forward in a small line-up potentially. If he lives up to the hype, we should be seeing him listed on All Big Ten teams down the road.