MU bonds unbroken for N’Garsanet

After moving 120 miles away from your best friends, there’s nothing like Chinese food to remind you of home after a long day at work.

Former Missouri center Christelle N’Garsanet spent the past summer playing basketball with the New York Liberty, and came back to MU during the fall semester to finish her master’s degree in accounting.

From there, she moved to St. Louis to begin an internship with KPMG, a Big Four accounting firm.

After ending her day at the firm, then working out on Monday night, N’Garsanet was on her way home a little before 9 p.m. She stopped at a Chinese food place that she found by accident while lost a few weeks ago, and ordered her favorite: chicken fried rice.

Then she remembered how often she and her former teammates and roommates, LaToya Bond and EeTisha Riddle, used to go out together in Columbia and eat Chinese food last year.

“We’d go all the time, especially when we got per diem,” Riddle said. “As soon as we got that check, we went to the Great Wall. That was our spot. We’d stay there for hours and we’d reminisce.

We’d talk about everything from practice to life to random things. Most of the time it was probably basketball. We’d just never get up and leave. The lady would always come back and ask if we needed something.”

Since N’Garsanet moved, Riddle has had the chance to visit her old teamate only once. but she is planning to go back this weekend. Riddle couldn’t stop laughing as she tried to explain the “Smoke-etti” incident, when N’Garsanet decided to make little smokies with tomato sauce and tomato paste because they were out of barbecue sauce.

“It’s hard, it’s terrible,” Riddle said. “I be telling her all the time, please come save me, I need you. It’s hard when your closest friends are older than you. I’d tell them last year to just call my name on senior night, too, so I could be with them. I talk to Christelle, and I leave Toy messages on the computer. I just try to stay in touch.”

But N’Garsanet is used to moving around and meeting new people. She moved to the United States from Africa when she was 19. So moving again to New York last year to play with the New York Liberty was just another adjustment.

“I don’t really realize it until someone says something, but I know it’s not normal,” she said. “It’s just who I am. My mom and dad have always been preaching about going everywhere and doing OK at different places. I’m glad they educated us about going places. I still have to adapt, but I feel like I haven’t made that many big changes in my life. It just comes easy.”

She acclimated to her latest move to St. Louis in January rather quickly. Her mother, Marie-Felicite N’Garsanet, even came from the Ivory Coast to visit after her December graduation. The first time she saw her daughter even close to a college court was when the Tigers beat South Dakota State on Dec. 17. N’Garsanet and Bond were recognized at halftime of the game for finishing their degrees.

“It was hard for us to do a lot of things because I was in the process of moving,” Christelle N’Garsanet said. “But we went out and went to restaurants and did some shopping. She helped me move. She was a big help, and I think she enjoyed doing that. We didn’t do as much as I wanted to do. Hopefully when I go back to New York, she can come back and we can do more things.”

N’Garsanet chose to play with the WNBA this past summer instead of taking the KPMG internship.

She said KPMG was helpful in telling her she could have the opportunity for the internship at a later time. And N’Garsanet hasn’t regretted it.

“I’m just very excited,” she said. “I know I didn’t make the wrong decision to go after the WNBA. I would say it will be basketball for a while, and after, work somewhere as a CPA. But for now, basketball is my first love. I’ve been blessed from the beginning. That’s why I’m so excited for everything right now.”

Since beginning her internship, N’Garsanet has been able to attend one Missouri basketball game.

She joked about possibly driving to Lawrence, Kan., for the game tonight at 7, but reminded herself she has to work.

“I’m always connected to the Internet trying to follow up,” she said. “You sure don’t want to lose by one or two points. That’s part of the game. If you play hard every single night, the fans will love you for that. That’s why you need to show that every night. Everyone’s doing their best, and you always have someone to win and someone to lose. It’s hard it has to be us.”

And while N’Garsanet is missing Riddle and the rest of her former teammates, she’s also missing playing basketball. She’s excited for April, when she’ll leave to train with the Liberty in preparation for the season.

“You always want to be out there,” she said. “I thought it would be easier, but being on the other side, on the bleachers, it’s not really fun. You’re supposed to be out there with your friends and teammates.”