THINKS THE EAGLES STOLE ONE
"Compared to my country, everything is going fast," Yarou said yesterday as the Wildcats met the media at the Pavilion. "It's like people don't sleep."
The 6-foot-10 citizen of Benin in West Africa said his remark had nothing to do with students being up all night studying or partying.
"What I was saying, I mean everybody is trying to get better," he said. "People don't sleep too much. Once people wake up in the morning, they just want to get better."
Yarou, who took up basketball at 13, came to Villanova from Montrose Christian School in Rockville, Md., where he averaged 20 points, 12 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots and rose into the top 30 of the ESPNU rankings.
During the recruiting process, Villanova coach Jay Wright and then-associate head coach Patrick Chambers flew to Benin to meet with Yarou's parents, brothers, and other family members.
"This was kind of unique to them because they didn't understand the concept of going to college, getting an education, and playing a sport," Wright said. "To them, no athletics are associated with education. They're club sports.
"So it was really explaining the basics of how it works in the United States. They simply wanted to know, 'Are you going to take care of my son and is he going to get a good education?' They didn't care about basketball at all."
Yarou, who speaks five languages, said adjusting to college life has been "really hard" but that everyone, especially his teammates and coaches, has been nice to him, helping him with his English and his basketball skills.
Team captain Scottie Reynolds called Yarou "very nice and very respectful" but added that he and his teammates "need to toughen him up a little bit."
For now, Wright said he is going to bring Yarou along slowly.
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