It wasn't supposed to go this way. Dwayne Koroma is is a 6-foot-8 point-forward from Germany who attends Bishop Walsh in Cumberland, Maryland. He was wrapping up his senior season, and was getting ready to take his official visits. Minnesota, Rutgers, Old Dominion, and San Diego are the schools recruiting him the hardest, and he was hoping to see those campuses this spring. Koroma holds an offer from the Gophers.

But the threat of COVID-19, better known as the Coronavirus, has changed those plans, and left him with much uncertainty.

When The Gopher Report spoke with him on Sunday night, he was in-between leaving Bishop Walsh and flying back to Germany on Monday. His dorms were forced to close. Now he isn't sure when he will be able to get back to the states or what his recruitment will look like at that time.

Koroma spoke went in-depth about that and more in a candid interview with us.

Q: Your season ended kind of abruptly with the corona scare. Tell us how that has been for you.

Koroma: "We had the opportunity to play a lot of national scheduled games with Bishop Walsh and Coach Prete. I'm really happy to have the opportunity. All of the games were really close. We lost to Wasatch Academy by five and Oak Hill by seven. So the opportunities were there. As a new, upcoming program we are proud of that, but we aren't satisfied. We're happy we got the opportunity, but could have made more out of it.

Being in the ACIT and playing against teams like DeMatha and Gonzaga, those were opportunities that we used as well. We hosted the tournament. Due to the corona virus we weren't able to play those. We are happy that we got these opportunities and grew together. I thank the coaching staff for that."

Q: How do you think you played?

Koroma: "I had ups and downs this season. All in all, I feel like I adjusted pretty well from the European game to the American game. We started off good, but when we played our first national game we realized that's where we want to be. We don't measure ourselves when we play our local games. I think I did pretty good when we were traveling around the states. We were in San Francisco and I had a pretty decent outing there. I got MVP of one tournament in Washington D.C. I was injured toward the end of the season, so I had to bounce back off that. I'm good again, so I was looking forward to the ACIT. I'm happy about the team. I couldn't have asked for a better team, a better coaching staff, and better opportunities than I got at Bishop Walsh."

Q: Descibe yourself to us as a player.

Koroma: "I am an athletic player and I think my defensive abilities stand out. I feel like I can help a team defensively. I say I am a point forward, so if I get the ball and there is a lane, I can push the ball as well. I can create. I think the best part of my game is just that I can rebound the ball and bring it up the floor, and defend on the ball. I'm a very good on-ball defender. I can get boards."

Q: So now things are on hold. You told me school is closed and you have to go back to Germany.

Koroma: "Due to the coronavirus I was forced to do online classes now, and I was actually planning on doing them in the states. But the host of the dorm doesn't have any influence on that, so the dorm has to close down as well. So I'm forced to go back to Germany and finish my online classes there to graduate. I just hope I can come back to the states as soon as possible when everything has settled down again."

Q: How does all of this hinder your recruitment right now?

Koroma: "I've talked to the coaches who I have an interest in visiting their schools since this whole incident has broken out. Nobody can really give me an answer on when or if I can come back. There are no answers from the schools I want to visit. I'm kind of in-between not knowing what to do and when I can visit the schools. Nobody can really give me an answer, and nobody really knows when the schools are opening again since all of the schools are shutting down and they don't know when people can come back on campus."

Q: Where do things stand with Minnesota right now?

Koroma: "Coach Kyle( (Lindsted) has been showing me love since the beginning. He came to my practice one time because he knows Coach Prete really well. He's just a cool guy. I really like him. He came to my practice. He calls me every once in a while. We talk. He told me about their program, and they have another German guy as well that I know, Isaiah Ihnen. That's really cool. I was excited to go up there. I wanted to go up there for Thanksgiving, but it didn't work out because we had a tournament. I was looking forward to going and seeing the campus during spring break. That was the plan actually. I don't know where things stand right now."

Q: Did you get to watch Isaiah during the season?

Koroma: "Yes. I actually saw highlights. If you follow German pages they will support the German players overseas. So it's easy for me. Every time we were in a hotel when we were on the road I got the see the Big Ten Network. I used to watch SportsCenter to see how Minnesota was doing, and how they were playing. Sometimes they were playing (on television) when I was there. That was cool as well."

Q: What type of relationship do you two have?

Koroma: "He's one year older than me. He played in the south, and I played in the north, so we actually didn't get to play each other. At the end of the year there was an all-star game in out league. We started talking in the locker room. He was going to Minnesota back then. That was before I was thinking about going to the states."

Q: Do you have a list of schools that you are considering right now?

Koroma: "The schools that are recruiting me right now, and have been showing me love from the beginning. I'm just looking forward to going on the campuses and seeing what my role would be at those schools."