Listed weight 213 lb (97 kg) Nationality American Parents Rebecca Gak, Makuac Gob | Listed height 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) Height 2.06 m Weight 97 kg | |
 | ||
League Southeastern Conference College Kentucky (2016–present) Similar Edrice Adebayo, De'Aaron Fox, Malik Monk, Isaiah Briscoe, Derek Willis | ||
Wenyen Gabriel (born March 26, 1997) is an American basketball player of South Sudanese origin who plays at the University of Kentucky.
Contents
- 1 players invade the 2016 ballastv invite wenyen gabriel hamidou diallo more
- Career
- Personal life
- References
He stands 6’9’’ (206 cm) tall and plays power forward. Wenyen Gabriel was a 5-star prospect who in 2016 was ranked number 14 on ESPN's Top 100.
1 players invade the 2016 ballastv invite wenyen gabriel hamidou diallo more
Career
Gabriel attended Wilbraham & Monson Academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts since 2014. Prior to that, he played at Trinity High School in Manchester, New Hampshire for three years.
In October 2015, he announced his decision to enroll at the University of Kentucky. Maryland, Duke, UConn and Providence were other schools on his shortlist. He played 19:17 minutes in the 2016 Nike Hoop Summit, scoring two points, grabbing four rebounds and dishing out two assists.
He made his debut for the UK Wildcats in an exhibition game on October 31, 2016 against Clarion University, tallying nine points, two rebounds and one assist in 17 minutes coming off the bench.
Personal life
Gabriel was born in Khartoum, Sudan, on March 26, 1997. Because his sister – born a year earlier – had died in infancy, Gabriel was given the name "Wenyen", which means "wipe your tears" in his native Dinka language. Two weeks after he was born, Gabriel's mother, Rebecca Gak, moved with him and his three siblings to Cairo, Egypt to escape the violence of the Second Sudanese Civil War. While Gabriel's mother worked to earn enough money to move his father, Makuac, to Cairo, his seven-year-old brother, Komot, became Gabriel's primary care giver. Two years after moving to Egypt, the United Nations granted an appeal to move the refugee family to Manchester, New Hampshire, an American city with a large Sudanese population.
Though receiving a US passport in 2015 and being picked to represent the USA Basketball Junior National Select Team at the 2016 Nike Hoop Summit, Gabriel calls South Sudan home.