Junior Jeannot Basima has been playing basketball for about 10 years and plans to continue his basketball career for many years to come.

Jeannot is an international student here at JC. He was originally born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and was able to come to the United States to play basketball for JC, along with other students coming from all over the world.
When on the court, Jeannot is a guard. In the future, he plans to continue his basketball career and, hopefully, play professionally. Jeannot said, “My main goal is to get in the NBA.”
Jeannot constantly works on his skills in order to improve and be the best player he can be. He said, “I always get in the gym by myself in the morning from 6:30 to 7:20; then after school I have practice with the team, and I stay after practice to get some extra shots.” Even before his season began, Jeannot said that he “put a lot of work in, and I know for sure it’s going to pay off.”
Jeannot said, “I love sports especially basketball because sports can change your life, and it gives a lot of opportunity.” He then added, “Just like me, I feel like if I didn’t play basketball I wouldn’t be here in the USA.”
However, playing basketball so seriously does prompt some challenges for Jeannot. He said, “Sometimes I get stressed if I have a bad game or if I don’t make my shots in a game, but I always find a way to fix it and just focus on the next game.”
Jeannot also said that it is difficult to balance basketball and schoolwork. He said, “There’s a lot of challenges, but I feel like keeping up your grades and making sure you don’t have any missing assignments is the most challenging to me because you can’t play if you have bad grades. If you have a missing assignment, your teammates would run because of you.”
Jeannot said that his biggest inspiration for his dedication to the sport of basketball are his parents. He said, “My parents are my biggest inspiration because they are hard workers, and they always believe in me that I will make it to the next level.”
When he isn’t playing basketball, Jeannot said that he “always spends time with my friends, and I am on the phone with my family because they aren’t with me here.”