Anosike dons new crown
MAAC champion with Siena in 2010, he wins with Mexican pro team
On Thursday, former Siena men’s basketball star O.D. Anosike won his first championship since he was a Saints freshman a decade ago.
Much has changed since then, due in no small part to the coronavirus pandemic that is keeping fans out of arenas.
“Very different than what I’m used to,” Anosike, now 29 years old, said Saturday. “The last championship I won was in front of, let’s say, 10,000-plus (10,679) at the Times Union Center. This was in front of, let’s say, 50 people and they were all our front office and management and sponsors, so definitely a different atmosphere.”
At the same time, Anosike drew comparisons between that 2010 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship victory over Fairfield and the title he won two nights ago with Fuerza Regia de Monterrey in Mexico’s top league, the National Professional Basketball League.
Anosike, a 6-foot-8 forward, had 15 points and nine rebounds as Fuerza Regia beat Aaquacateros 90-78 to complete a threegames-to-one victory in the final.
He and his teammates each got their own bottle of champagne — possibly a COVID-19 precaution — and enjoyed a team dinner afterward.
“The feeling of winning and that camaraderie around your teammates and coaching staff,
it’s still the same, so it was definitely a great experience, especially at a time like this,” Anosike said.
Anosike missed two games during the season because he contracted COVID-19, which ran through the team even though Fuerza Regia players were placed in a bubble-like atmosphere in a hotel about 45 minutes outside Monterrey.
“I was basically asymptomatic,” he said. “I just had headaches and chills for about two days, so I’m extremely fortunate from that standpoint.”
Anosike said he was in quarantine for about 10 days until he had a negative test.
“Just a number of different issues, and to fight through that adversity as a team and to get the championship really means a lot,” he said.
Anosike’s eight-year journey as a professional has taken him around the world. He has played professionally in France, Italy and Greece. He was in South Korea when the pandemic struck in March and canceled his season there.
He decided to return to Mexico in September because he enjoyed playing there last year. Fuerza Regia’s former players include Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman and Jamario Moon, who played for the Albany Patroons before spending time in the NBA.
“Extremely underrated,” Anosike said of Mexican basketball. “Very, very good players, especially from a foreigner’s standpoint. Extremely physical. The referees let you play a little bit and I kind of like that.”
Anosike has never minded contact. He was a two-time NCAA rebounding champion at Siena and ranks second in program history with 1,076, behind only Ryan Rossiter’s 1,151.
Anosike was flying home to New Jersey on Saturday and plans on spending Thanksgiving with his family. He probably won’t be there very long because he’s fielding offers from teams in Europe, South America and Asia.
He might not be playing much longer.
“I’ve always said basketball is what I do, but I don’t think it’s who I am,” he said. “I always took my academics very seriously. I’d say I have a couple of more years left, then I’d like to go into coaching at the collegiate level. That’s my dream. That’s my passion. So that’s something I definitely want to pursue in the near future.”