Basketball gave Wichita State’s Jane Asinde confidence. She inspires Uganda in return

Before she became a double-double machine for the Wichita State women’s basketball team, Jane Asinde had to learn the game by watching others.

Growing up in Uganda, Asinde didn’t have a cell phone, so she couldn’t pull up YoutTube and watch highlights of WNBA greats like Lisa Leslie, Syliva Fowles or Tina Charles.

So when she first started playing basketball at the age of 16, Asinde only had the other players at her high school to watch.

“If I saw somebody do something that I couldn’t do, then I would just try to copy what they were doing,” Asinde said. “But I didn’t want to just copy. I wanted to do it better than what they were doing.”

It’s a formula that has made Asinde, now a springy 6-foot-1 senior forward, into one of the best players in the American Athletic Conference, as she leads Wichita State in scoring (11.9 points) and rebounding (11.0) entering Thursday’s 6 p.m. game against Tulane at Koch Arena.

In her second season with the Shockers, Asinde has blossomed into one of the best rebounders in college basketball, as she ranks 12th nationally in rebounds per game.

“When she gets in that beast mode, she can put up some numbers,” WSU head coach Keitha Adams said. “Her athleticism is just through the roof. She’s got another floor in the elevator that not everybody has. She just has huge potential.”

There’s so much raw talent in Asinde that it’s sometimes easy to forget that she only started playing basketball seven years ago. In fact, before she found basketball, Asinde said she was embarrassed by her height growing up.

In a county where soccer is the most popular sport, Asinde felt like her height was a disadvantage.

“I was really tall and really skinny, so people used to call me (names),” Asinde said. “When I would walk, I would try to scrunch my back so I wasn’t as tall. I had never seen tall girls before I started playing basketball.”

Asinde said there are few popular female athletes from Uganda for young girls in the country to look up to, especially in basketball. The women’s national team is ranked No. 89 in the world in the latest FIBA rankings and has never qualified for the Olympic Games.

Asinde’s older sister, Caroline Otto, who is 15 years older, actually played for the Uganda women’s national basketball team and suggested Jane also give basketball a try when she was in high school.

“She introduced me to her coach on the national team and I think he liked me just because I was tall,” Asinde said.

Asinde was tall, athletic and already had some of the skills of basketball down from her experience of playing netball when she was younger. She was a quick learner and immediately started playing for Uganda’s junior national team, known as the Gazelles, and represented her country in the 2018 FIBA 3-on-3 U-23 World Cup. She was also picked up by the JKL Dolphins in her hometown of Kampala, the capital and largest city in Uganda, to play in the women’s National Basketball League.

After years of being embarrassed by her height, Asinde being tall was suddenly an asset. She will always love basketball because it was the sport that instilled confidence in her.

“Basketball brought so much confidence out of me,” Asinde said. “I started watching basketball games and there were all of these tall girls who had confidence in themselves and they weren’t scared of their height. They walked with confidence. That helped me gain confidence. I love the game because it gave me confidence in who I am.”

Asinde didn’t know much about the possibilities in basketball, but she knew college basketball in the United States was where the best players in the world played.

So when the Federation of Uganda Basketball Association informed her there was a school in Texas that was interested in offering her a scholarship to play college basketball, Asinde jumped at the offer.

That school happened to be Grayson College, a community college program run by former WSU assistant coach Bill Damuth. Asinde was an instant star at the level and averaged 18.9 points and 12.5 rebounds in her second season, earning NJCAA first team All-American honors in 2020.

Damuth told his old boss back in Wichita about the potential double-double machine and WSU associate head coach Ewa Laskowska quickly formed a bond with Asinde through Zoom and FaceTime calls during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.

“What we quickly learned was that not only is Jane a great basketball player, but she’s an even better person,” Adams said. “She’s got a good heart. She’s very humble. She treats others with a lot of respect. She carries herself with a lot of maturity and composure and is just a very mature young lady.”

Her journey in America has sometimes been lonely, but Asinde has never been alone thanks to her older sister, Caroline, who is now a nurse in North Dakota. They communicate on a daily basis and her guidance and advice have been invaluable to Jane along the way.

“She’s my best friend, but she’s also my sister, my mother, my father, my brother all rolled into one,” Asinde said. “Even though I don’t have any of my family here (in Wichita), I always have my sister who I can tell everything to and share my life with and she can share her life with me.”

With one more year of college eligibility remaining, Asinde’s production at Wichita State is starting to be noticed and open up possibilities for her to play professional basketball after school.

Back home in Uganda, Asinde’s rising talent gives hope to the Gazelles that the Uganda women’s basketball national team can someday reach new heights in international basketball.

When Asinde steps on the court for the Shockers, she’s not only playing for Wichita State, but for an entire country. It’s not pressure, she says, it’s pride.

Asinde hopes her success can inspire a new generation of female basketball players in Uganda and give them someone to look up to, something that she never had.

“The love from home and the support makes me so happy and it makes me want to do more and have more success,” Asinde said. “Girls from back home will reach out to me on Facebook all the time and ask me what they need to do. I always tell them you’ve got to work hard because it’s not going to come on a silver plate. And every day you’ve got to dream big. Because if you don’t dream big, then what are you doing?”