After talking to Moses Abraham on the phone last night, I spent a good deal of time trying to contact his guardian, Joe Boncore, to find out the main reason he chose Georgetown over IU.
Abraham had a hard time answering that question himself and I never did get a hold of Boncore.
Boncore called me back a little while ago and we hand a lengthy conversation about the decision process. He offered some excellent insight and answered the questions that IU fans really want to hear. Below is the transcript from our conversation.
One more thing that you won't get from the transcript. Boncore talks about Moses' brother but doesn't give an age. He is 17 and is supposed to move to the country soon.
IDS: Why did Moses choose Georgetown over Indiana?
Boncore: Because the people he knows are here. You have to understand that the only family he has is me and the friends that he has made since he has been in Washington D.C. He came from a very small town in Nigeria and then jumped right into D.C. It has been a difficult transition for him.
IDS: Did IU's record this year and last play a role?
Boncore: None. Indiana is great.
IDS: A lot of IU fans want to know how this university and basketball program are seen from the outside. With that being said, why did Moses put IU in his final two instead of schools like UCLA, Maryland or Tennesee?
Boncore: He knew that he was going to get support there because it's a great school. Even though they've had down years, the fans are always going to be there. He knew he could play right away. They have a great coaching staff. And a lot of the kids that are there are from D.C. I know D.C. kids and if you get D.C. kids, you're going to turn things around; it's just inevitable. You can see Kansas State. You can see wherever D.C. kids go, they end up winning.
The thing was, it was very, very hard for Moses. He made it, I didn't make it. His uncle had an influence on it but Moses made the decision. He does have a friend going there (Georgetown), but it was still a very hard decision.
He kept flipping back and forth. I really thought he was going to go to Indiana. But he got off the plane, we had Chinese food and I asked him what he wanted to do. He said, 'I think it's better for me to go to Georgetown. I want to go there to concentrate and get better.' I asked him if he wanted to think about it for a couple of days and he said 'No, I just want to get it over with.'
He just had a hard time with letting people down. It's been tough because he has said no to a lot of different colleges. Georgetown was in the same predicament Indiana was a week ago. You know, they thought they had lost Moses to Indiana.
But his brother is coming here and we recommended Indiana to him. His brother is a little taller than him. Hopefully if I train a few other kids, I can send some kids that way. Everybody thinks we did this because Indiana did something wrong. Nobody did anything wrong. Indiana was great. I've been all over the country, and in fan support in facilities, and Moses even said this, Indiana has the best of everything. It's not that we don't want Indiana to win or good things to come their way. But for this particular kid in this particular situation, he decided to go with that.
People also need to understand that before coach (Tom Crean) showed up, he was going to Georgetown. For him to even get Moses to go out there, change his mind and come within an eyelash of going to Indiana was a really good thing on this part.
IDS: You said Moses' uncle played into the decision. Could you explain that a little bit more?
Well, Moses doesn't have a dad so his uncle helped out his mom when he was being raised. Basically he said he wanted to keep him close to people that care about him.
