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After a year of development, Gandy Malou-Mamel hopes to make an impact with UConn women this season
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- After a year of development, Gandy Malou-Mamel hopes to make an impact with UConn women this season
STORRS – Gandy Malou-Mamel started playing basketball when she was 12. She didn't get serious about it until a few years later and moved from Ireland to the U.S. to pursue her dream.
So when she came to UConn last year, the 6-foot-5 center knew that there were a slew of top post players in front of her and that she would be spending much of her time working on developing her game.
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Now, Malou-Mamel, who played sparingly in two games last November, feels like she's ready to contribute.
Asked last week what people would notice different about her, she said, "I think they'll notice my work ethic, my ability to rebound, my want to win every possession, to keep the ball in our play. Defensive, offensive rebounding, blocking.
"I feel like I have a magnet with the ball. I always want to know where the ball is going, where my teammates are shooting from, so if we don't get the first chance, we'll get the second chance."
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Strength and conditioning has also been emphasized.
"I feel much stronger," she said. "I feel like sometimes it's hard to see it, day by day, but when you're looking back on old film you definitely notice it. I notice how much less strong I was in the paint. I guess seeing how I played before and making sure I improve on that, that's where I see the most improvement."
Malou-Mamel's parents are refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who went to Ireland, where Malou-Mamel was born, the oldest of five siblings. She discovered basketball when she was 12 and at age 16, she moved to the U.S. to live with a host family and played at Gill St. Bernard's in Gladstone, New Jersey.
"She's an unbelievable kid," Gill St. Bernard's coach Mark Gnapp told mycentraljersey.com in Jan. 2025. "Really special. Really mature. And extremely coachable. A hard worker. She is the kid who comes along maybe once every decade, or once in your coaching career."
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Her senior year, she averaged 17.1 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game.
Coming to Storrs last year and competing against her UConn teammates was a bit of a reality check, Malou-Mamel said, even though she knew coming in that it was a much higher level of play.
"It was definitely easier to battle with high school players," she said. "Coming here, I didn't expect for the same thing to happen but it's definitely a shock when you're not as agile or dominant as you want to feel.
"So (I've been) working on myself and building on what I want to be and making that happen physically – that's the blueprint I saw, me getting stronger, me being able to battle against bigger players here."
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Before she came to the U.S., she said, she could rebound – but that was about it.
"It was the only thing I was able to do," she said. "I wasn't a great shooter; layups were still new to me. I was a very nervous player before coming to this country. Getting rebounds and letting that nervous energy go into something that no one else is doing – coming here, I saw what an advantage it was to be a good rebounder so I think coming here, I'm making sure I can do that, by getting stronger in the weight room."
So that's what she's done. Last year, she spent a lot of time working with long-time assistant coach Jamelle Elliott, who recently left UConn to start a consulting firm.
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"Working with (Elliott) had to be one of the best experiences of my life," she said. "She put a lot of effort and time into making me a better and smarter player, not just, 'What did I do wrong? but 'How can I make that better? What's the next play after this?'"
She said she knew she would have to be patient and work on her game when she came to UConn but sometimes it was still hard to grasp that concept.
"It's always frustrating for a player who wants to compete not to be able to compete," she said. "But it's not something I would say is a setback. I would tell myself to be patient. Working with Coach Elliott as well, helped me work on my patience.
"They told me my development has come a long way and I think for the future, I just need to keep up with what I'm doing."
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