ROCK HILL, S.C. – When Arafan Diane was 12 years old growing up in the West African nation of Guinea, he was buying a soccer ball at a local market and met Souleymane Kasse, the coach of the Guinea National Training Center and an assistant for Guinea’s national team. Kasse was surprised to learn the boy was so young. Looking at Diane’s long legs and long arms, he told Arafan he should buy a basketball instead.
That turned out to be excellent advice. Today, just five years later, Diane is one of the top high school basketball players in America. The 7-foot-1 senior from Iowa United Prep, a school which specializes in recruiting African players, shined this week at the National Basketball Player’s Association’s Top 100 Camp in Rock Hill, S.C. Diane’s skills are a little rough, but he is physical and agile, and he plays with impressive tenacity. He opened up by going for 25 points during his first game for Team Drummond and ended up averaging 13.3 points on 52.0 percent shooting to go along with 4.9 rebounds during the three days of play. Diane’s play made clear why he is ranked in the 247Sports Composite as the No. 1 center and No. 23 overall prospect in the Class of 2026. While playing for Iowa United on the Adidas 3SSB Circuit this spring, Dianie has averaged 16.8 points, 9.4 rebounds and 1.3 blocks. He has jolted up to the No. 23 overall prospect and No. 1 center in 247Sports’ Top-150 class of 2026 rankings after being ranked in the eighties a few months ago.
Much like his game, Diane’s English is a work in progress – he speaks five other languages, including French, which is the official language of Guinea – but he made clear that he was feeling confident in his performance at the Top 100 Camp. “I’m feeling good,” Diane told Hoops HQ midway through the event. “I’m pushing my team in winning every single day. This is a good opportunity. Most people don’t have this opportunity. I’m African. That’s different. I need to come in with a good mentality because you don’t have a mom (in America), you don’t have any dad, you don’t have nothing. You need a strong mentality.”
It’s amazing to think that all of this might have never happened were it not for that chance encounter at the market. From that moment, Diane and Kasse formed a bond and started training together. After working on Diane’s game for a year, Kasse called Alex Victor, who was at the time running a prep program in Montreal called Dynastie Prep, which specialized in getting kids opportunities south of the border. “He called us up and he was like, ‘The kid needs to leave. He’s getting better too quick. I really think he needs to leave as soon as possible,’” Victor recalled.
There was one major problem, though. Guinea was under a military coup at the time and Diane couldn’t get out. He wasn’t old enough to fly by himself, and nobody was able to fly into the country to pick him up. So Diane had to wait until he was 14 years old, when he was legally able to fly out on his own.
Diane spent that time continuing to perfect his craft. And when he was finally able to head to Canada to become part of Victor’s program, he was a sight to behold. “When he came in at 14 and I saw him, the kid was different,” Victor said. “He had a touch. He was a competitor. You could see that this kid is in it to win it. Like the competitiveness he has in him, he was just special.”
Victor didn’t have a JV team, so Diane competed on a MADEHoops team, where he faced off against cream-of-the-crop talent like 2025’s No. 1 overall prospect A.J. Dybantsa. “That’s when we were like ‘Okay, this kid is going to make it somewhere,’” Victor said. “And we put him on the varsity team the next year after that. As a 14-year-old he was playing against 19-year-olds and competing and making a mark for himself. His growth has been exponential ever since. Every year you’re like, ‘Okay, he’s pretty good. It’s going to slow down.’ And he just keeps working hard and keeps improving.”
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Diane was with Victor at Dynastie from 2021-2024 before they sent him to Iowa to play on the American AAU circuit in 2024. This past September, Victor officially moved his program to Iowa, forming Iowa United, the year-round program who plays both AAU and high school basketball. Since the move, Diane benefited greatly from the exposure of playing in the United States and has since risen to become a top prospect. He subsequently drew interest from some of the top college programs in the country. He currently holds offers from Creighton, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisville, Oregon and UConn, among others, with Houston and several schools showing interest in his talents as well.
“He wants to win,” Victor said. “A lot of coaches say it’s not about the name on the back of your jersey, it’s about the name on the front. Like, when he gets on the court, he doesn’t care if he scores, if he doesn’t score. He wants to win. He’s obsessed with winning.
It has taken a little longer for Diane’s personality to match his ability, but that growth happened as well. “To be honest with you, he’s not a natural leader,” Victor said. “That’s not his personality. But we needed him to be a leader and he stepped up to the plate. Sometimes he does it and he’s awkward, sometimes he’s too emotional, but this is the thing: he’s not afraid to try. He’s not afraid to grow.”
Diane’s energy and leadership stood out at the Adidas 3SSB Session 2 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in May. His raw size, shooting touch and shot blocking ability stood out, but he also rallied his teammates, often leading the team huddles. He was the vocal presence Iowa United needed on defense. “Sometimes my teammates (let up),” Diane said. “When we come in here, there’s no coming down, you know? I’m just talking to my teammates like ‘Let’s go. It’s not finished. Keep going, keep going.’ That’s it.”
Diane has the tools to be a special player. He describes himself as a big man who can post up and do work on the perimeter. Maybe that’s why Victor has tabbed him as the “African Nikola Jokic.”
“He has the size,” Victor said. “He has the strength. He has the court vision. He sees the open man. He can pass the ball. He can play high-low. He can stretch the floor now. He shoots threes. If you put someone that’s as big as him, the footwork is there as well. So to me, the closest thing to him, and when we first got him people were saying baby Shaq, but I think Jokic is more accurate. He has a complete game and now we’re starting to give him the freedom to bring the ball up the court when he gets a rebound.”
At this stage of Diane’s recruitment, he is focused on doing a lot of Zooms with coaching staffs, just getting a feel for the programs and building relationships. The goal right now is to lock down the half dozen or so visits Diane will take by the first week of September. Diane said Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville and Michigan were in at some point to visit him during the high school season, but right now, he says he’s “just working and focusing on my skill.”
The recruiting process will pick up intensity later this fall. In the meantime, Diane is prepared ot continue to stand out and above the competition during this final summer on the AAU circuit. “He’s keeping the main thing the main thing,” Victor said. “Winning, growing his game and not buying the hype. He’s not looking around yet. He’s just laser focused, looking at the ground and running as fast as he can.”
