When Mac Koshwal stepped on the floor for the first time in a high school summer game, his teammates and coaches told him not to touch the ball on offense. The 6-foot-7 16-year-old was supposed to just stand in front of the basket with his hands up to block shots and grab rebounds.

‘On one possession I got the ball, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just traveled,’ Koshwal said. ‘But from that moment I said ‘I don’t want to be embarrassed, and I’m going to get better.”

Koshwal has only played basketball for just more than five years, but he’s improved enough in that time to sufficiently impress DePaul head coach Jerry Wainwright.

When the Blue Demons (9-10, 4-3) host Syracuse at the Allstate Arena on Wednesday night, they will likely start at least three seniors in an attempt to stay over .500 in the Big East. It’s of little surprise two of them – Draelon Burns and Cliff Clinkscales – were named captains for this season.

The decision to elevate the freshman Koshwal to the same status seems less obvious.

Before the season, Wainwright named Koshwal the first freshman captain in team history. It’s an honor befitting the maturity of Koshwal, a native of Sudan whose family fled the war-torn country while Koshwal was still young.

‘At first, I was confused,’ Koshwal said regarding his selection as team captain. ‘I wasn’t sure why he picked me. I was just usually cheering people on and just making noise and helping people when they were down.’

Now, the 6-foot-10, 240-pound big man has backed up Wainwright’s confidence thus far in the season. Koshwal leads the team with 8.1 rebounds per game and is third on the team in scoring with 11.5 points per game on 55.5 percent shooting from the field.

Even Loren Jackson – Koshwal’s legal guardian and former coach at Julian High School and Boys To Men Academy in Chicago – was somewhat shocked when he heard the news.

‘Any kid that’s named captain as a freshman surprises any coach that’s been in the business as long as I have,’ Jackson said. ‘But I think one of the things that he brings to the table that coach Wainwright is trying to bring to his program is hard work and toughness.’

Even with Wainwright’s support and his early success on the floor, Koshwal maintains that he does not consider himself different from any other freshman on the team. He sees Burns and Clinkscales as the real leaders on the team.

‘I still look at it as they’re the captains,’ Koshwal said. ‘I don’t look at myself as a captain. I still learn a lot from them and watch what they do. Just because coach made me the captain, definitely doesn’t mean I won’t listen to them.’

He may have picked up basketball at a late age, but Koshwal used his tough times at the beginning of his basketball career as a motivating factor. Although other people at his school made jokes at his expense over his lack of polished skill, he never once considered quitting and kept working harder to be a better player.

‘When you like something and you’re not good at it, you have to keep working harder,’ he said. ‘I just loved the game, and I kept saying I had to get better. Every day I became better, and I started liking it more and more.’

Koshwal spent his early childhood in Sudan with his parents. He does not remember how old he was when he and his family fled to Canada, but he does remember his early years were not the happiest. Koshwal’s mother remembers the terrible times dealing with war and slavery in their home country, but she has told her son not to dwell on the past, preferring he look toward the future. He said she will occasionally tell a story or two about Sudan, but she does not speak about it often.

Still, Koshwal’s experience has had an effect on the way he lives his life and how he prepares to play on the basketball court.

‘I’m just feeling fortunate that I made it out, and I can just live my life and move on,’ Koshwal said. ‘There are people that are worse off than me. It makes me work harder every time I think of it.’

Koshwal moved from Canada to Chicago when he was 16 years old. Jackson and his wife adopted him and helped him enroll at Julian High School, where he played two years of basketball. After being ruled ineligible for public high school, Koshwal moved on to Jackson’s new school: Boys To Men Academy.

Playing two years of prep school helped Koshwal learn how to compete against bigger and stronger competition than he would have in public school leagues. Instead of only matching up against high school kids that were as much as a foot shorter than he was, Koshwal had to develop an inside-out game to dominate competition that was even larger than he was.

‘Prep school gets you stronger and more prepared for college,’ he said. ‘Being 6-10 in prep school sometimes doesn’t mean you’re that big because you could be going against a 7-footer. It just improves all your skills period.’

Koshwal has impressed in his half season with DePaul, especially in one of the biggest games of the year for the Blue Demons. DePaul opened Big East play with a home victory over then-No. 16 Villanova on Jan. 3. Koshwal racked up a double-double – his second of four on the season – with 11 points and 10 rebounds in the upset win.

‘It got us going,’ Koshwal said of the win. ‘It gave me the confidence that I can play with anybody, but it also showed me that I can always do better.’

Looking ahead, Depaul faces a major age gap. Four seniors will graduate this season, and it will be up to the five freshmen and a junior college transfer waiting behind them to fill the leadership void.

As he continues to develop as a player, Koshwal will be leaned on more and more in the future as the leader of a young team.

‘Coach put me here for a reason,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty much going to have to do the same thing the older guys taught me. I’ll have to teach a younger guy next year how it goes so he can keep it going like a tradition.’

Published on January 28, 2008 at 12:00 pm