Import Boosts Harbor’s Fortunes : Basketball: Although he has struggled with the language barrier, Bassirou Niang has more than held his own on the court.

Bassirou Niang loves Paris.

He went to high school there, played club basketball and frequented the nightclubs.

But nearly two years ago, a scout in Paris saw Niang play basketball for Racing Paris France, a club team. He watched the skinny, 6-foot-7, 185-pound forward consistently make 20-foot jump shots. The scout called Jim White, whom he knew when White coached overseas, to tell him about Niang.

White, formerly a men’s basketball coach at Harbor College and currently a physical education teacher at the school, passed the information along to Carl Strong, the Harbor coach.

Strong decided to take a chance on Niang.

In June, 1991, Niang left the Champs Elysees for Figueroa Place in Wilmington.

Niang (pronounced Nee-ANG), who moved to Paris when he was 15 from Dakar, Senegal, in West Africa, speaks French and Creole and two African languages, Wolof and Serere. But when he arrived in the United States, he couldn’t speak English.

He took English classes during summer school at Harbor but was not fluent when fall classes started in September.

“The first three months were real hard for me,” Niang said. “My math was all right because I had math in France, but the English was hard. You just learn. If you want, you can learn.”

But the main reason Niang, 22, came to Harbor was to play basketball. He expected to learn the pick-and-roll, the give-and-go and the art of boxing out a player for rebound. It appears he has accomplished those goals. He is averaging 20 points and nine rebounds a game for Harbor, which is 16-14 and 5-4 in the South Coast Conference.

What he didn’t anticipate was having opponents talk to him during games.

“When I first get here, it was different,” Niang said. “People were dunking on you and then talking trash. ‘Yeah, you’re no good.’ For me, I say it’s not friendly because in France we don’t do that.

“After, I say, hey, maybe that’s normal. Now, I talk crap to everybody. When I went (back) to France I was talking crap. When I did, they said, ‘You got a big head.’ ”

Sophomore teammate Jerry Allen said he has had to keep Niang from taunting opposing players.

“In the games the referee has to tell me to talk to him, to tell him to be quiet sometimes,” Allen said. “But he still talks trash out there.”

Strong, 59, doesn’t approve of his players conversing with opposing players and has made Niang do extra running in practice because of it.

“Unfortunately, that’s an American trait that he’s picked up here,” Strong said.

As a freshman, taunting didn’t bother Niang because he was struggling with the language.

“In the games, the opposing team would talk trash to Bassirou (pronounced Bahs-EE-Roo), but he didn’t understand what they’re talking about,” Strong said, laughing. “So it didn’t bother him. He would sort of smile at them and get his 20 points a game.”

In the fall, Niang will transfer to Division II Cal State Dominguez Hills. He plans to play there for a season, then return to Paris to play professionally for Racing Paris.

Niang, who maintains a B-minus average, would have liked to play at a Division I school before returning overseas, but economics wouldn’t allow it.

“People on the Division I level would like to recruit Bassirou,” Strong said. “But it’s so expensive for him to go to school here and he simply could not have afforded to get all the number of units (56) that he needs to transfer to a Division I school.”

Even after 20 months, some of the differences between Paris and Los Angeles boggle Niang’s mind.

“Everything is twice bigger here,” he said.

Niang’s teammates are surprised how much he has improved. No longer settling for jump shots, Niang, who is up to 195 pounds thanks to weight work, often posts up a defender and powers his way to the basket.

“In a year and a half, I learned a lot of things,” he said.

One thing he learned is that coaches scream at you, something he said didn’t happen in France. But Strong said he is impressed by Niang’s attitude.

“Bassirou is mature beyond his age in terms of basketball,” Strong said. “He came here and he wanted to learn. Some young men take criticism adversely. Bassirou understands that it’s constructive criticism and it’s meant just to let him become a better basketball player.

“The language barrier sometimes makes it difficult to coach him, but he’s extremely susceptible to coaching.”

His quiet sense of humor, along with a bright smile, has made Niang popular among teammates.

“We go hang out,” Allen said. “We go to basketball games, or clubs or parties. It’s real fun going to a party with him. It’s funny the way he acts. He’ll see a girl and he’ll say something in French into her ear. And they’ll start talking and all the girls will be around him.

“Like the girls up here (at Harbor). He’ll say something in French to them, kiss them on both cheeks. It’s real weird.”

Niang is only concerned with one woman right now, a Harbor student he calls Paris.

“Because she’s nice,” he said. “I’m going to take her with me when I go back. She doesn’t speak French, (but) she’s going to learn.”