Lebanese Players Train in Türkiye to Elevate Basketball Skills

In quiet Eskisehir, two young Lebanese players are chasing a bigger game.

With a month to go before their domestic seasons tip off, Lebanese national team point guard Mariam Jomaa, 22, and center Razan Thebian, 21, have left Beirut behind and dropped themselves into an intensive, self-funded mini-camp in central Türkiye. No club mandate. No federation program. Just a social media search, a few messages, and a decision that their next step had to be tougher, sharper, and far from home.

They found what they wanted in Eskisehir Kaplanlari coach Ali Ihsan Kucuk.

From online search to six-day grind

Jomaa and Thebian scoured the internet for coaches across Türkiye and beyond, comparing methods and reputations. Istanbul? Izmir? Eskisehir? They dug into all three. The search kept circling back to Kucuk and his work in Eskisehir, a city they had researched as carefully as the coach himself.

When they finally reached out, it was a first for him: players from abroad contacting him directly, not to sign for a club, but simply to train.

"They wanted to come to Türkiye, and after searching online, they found me and said they wanted to work with me," Kucuk said, outlining how the unlikely partnership began.

Once they arrived, there was no easing in. The pair are on a six-day-a-week schedule, with each session running around two to two and a half hours. The program is built around the core of the modern game: athletic performance, shooting, and fundamental skills, layered with defensive and offensive organization.

Kucuk has been struck by what they brought with them from Lebanon: energy, determination, and a clear hunger to absorb every detail. The work is hard, repetitive, and often unforgiving. That is exactly why they came.

New tools for the next step

For Jomaa, who runs the floor for Beirut First Club in the Lebanese Women's Basketball League, this trip is about returning home as a different player.

"We wanted to train better and improve ourselves. We knew that Türkiye has some of the best basketball leagues, so we decided to come here," she said, summing up the logic behind the move.

She and Thebian didn’t just want more training; they wanted different training. In Eskisehir, they have found drills, concepts, and physical demands that have exposed gaps they did not know they had. Several elements of Kucuk’s program are completely new to them, forcing adjustments in their footwork, decision-making, and conditioning.

Thebian, who plays for Tadamon Zouk in Lebanon's Women's Basketball Second League, has felt the same jolt. The sessions have introduced her to fresh approaches on both ends of the floor, and she has embraced the discomfort that comes with change.

The pressure of the Turkish standard is exactly the point. Türkiye’s reputation as one of the strongest basketball environments in the region drew them here, and each day in Eskisehir is a reminder of the level they are chasing.

Eyes on Türkiye’s courts

For now, the focus is clear: return to Lebanon sharper, stronger, and more complete when their leagues resume. But the horizon stretches further than that.

Both Jomaa and Thebian have made no secret of their ambition to build long-term careers in Türkiye. This camp is not just a preseason tune-up; it is an audition of sorts — for themselves, for the level, and for a future in a country whose basketball they admire.

If they can turn this month of self-driven work into a leap in performance back home, Eskisehir may prove to be more than a stopover. It might be the first real step on a path that leads them back to Türkiye, this time not just as visitors, but as professionals.