MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — James Okonkwo always knew he’d be able to make his mark in athletics, but his dreams had him doing it at Wimbledon, not the Coliseum.
He was a kid with a racket, living in the quaintly named English town of Maidenhead.
His game was tennis, not basketball, and as someone who grew to 6 feet, 8 inches and weighed in at 240 pounds, he well might have been a dominant force in that sport. His serves had to knock the fuzz off the tennis ball, and you didn’t want to try to lob over that frame with him reaching 10 feet into the air with the racket in his hand.
But always, when legends are born — and who knows what Okonkwo’s limits are as he enters into his sophomore season under Bob Huggins at West Virginia — the beginnings are always the most interesting.
Huggins addressed the beginnings for Okonkwo after Monday night’s opening victory over Mount St. Mary’s in which Okonkwo hit his only shot, pulled in five rebounds and had two blocks that had the crowd buzzing with excitement.
“He played tennis, and he got recruited to come over and play at a prep school,†Huggins began.
That would be Beckley Prep in West Virginia after graduating early from Furze Platt Senior School in Maidenhead.
“The prep school coach (Justin) Dempsey is a very dear friend of mine,†Huggins said. “He called me and said, ‘This guy is getting better and better and he can really block shots.’ Other schools were starting to try and recruit him, and he said we needed to take him before something stupid happened.â€
So they took him, Huggins saying “without really seeing him play.â€
He was injured last season and did nothing more than stick his toe into the college basketball waters ... but Huggins kept singing his praise from what he’d seen of him in practice.
He was only 18 years old and not ready for primetime, but when they opened the gift on Monday night, we all saw the special athletic ability he has that makes him one of the nation’s most promising prospects.
As a fifth-year senior and a team leader, Emmitt Matthews Jr. has taken him under his wing.
“I get on him every day because I know how good he can be,†Matthews said.
So does everyone who saw his two blocks, the likes of which have not been seen around the Coliseum since the days of Sagaba Konate.
It was midway through the second half when Mount St. Mary’s guard Jalen Benjamin thought he had a easy, open shot under the basket.
Wrong.
He went up, but Okonkwo went higher. He didn’t slap the ball away or pin it on the backboard. He grabbed it away with both hands.
You kind of had to be there to believe it — and there certainly were fewer than the almost 10,000 listed as the attendance. And, unfortunately, it was performed in the privacy of ESPN+, which is where basketball games go to die, not create legends.
So, on Tuesday morning it could be found on YouTube, but to get an idea of how “bouncy†— the word is Huggins’ — James Okonkwo is, check out the highlight video from his Beckley career.
In the first dunk on the reel, his forehead rises to the height of the rim. That was in high school, and it’s something he hasn’t lost.
The other day in practice, Matthews went up for a jump hook, and Okonkwo just caught it.
“His head was at the rim,†Matthews said. “He just grabbed it. He’s definitely on his way.â€
No, he’s not Konate ... at least not yet. Huggins put a stop to that kind of talk when it came up in his Monday post-game press conference.
“I would think it’d be a terrible mistake to compare him to Sags, but James is getting better and better. He’s bouncy and he’s quick off his feet,†Huggins said.
Put him inside with Mo Wague, a junior college addition who is tall, athletic, rangy and fast, and the mountainous Jimmy Bell Jr. to give WVU a trio of rim protectors who will make more and more of mark as the season goes on and give WVU a chance to control the rebounding as Huggins’ best teams do.
