The NBA may be in his future, but Miye Oni is relishing a special season at Yale
NEW HAVEN — After Miye Oni scored a careerhigh 29 points against Miami, coach Jim Larranaga said simply, “We couldn’t guard him.” A week later, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski said Oni, “will be a firstround pick.”
And now here was the 6-foot-6 junior on Friday, three days after scoring his 1,000th collegiate point against Skidmore, consider- ing those words. Considering how three years ago he was looking at attending Division III Williams and not considering the 2019 NBA Draft.
“That’s the highest praise, utmost respect from some of the best coaches in the world,” Oni said. “It means a lot to me. You hear things like that and you think, ‘Maybe I’m doing something right.’ It drives you to work even harder.”
And Matt Kingsley, Yale’s associate coach who first spotted Oni in a California high school layup line?
“It’s a little surreal,” Kingsley said. “But Miye has worked really hard and we’re happy he has put
himself to be in this position. We’re trying to help him continue along this path, keep everything in perspective and not get carried away with the hype. He’s doing a pretty good job of that.”
There is a long list of Ivy League players drafted by NBA teams, but none since Jerome Allen of Penn in 1995. Listed among the Top 50 and moving up on draft projections, Oni could end that drought in June. We’ll see. He’ll see.
First, there is a season, a potentially special one, to complete. At 10-3, heading into conference play, the Bulldogs are off to their best start since 1991-92. There are many boxes to check and Oni, averaging 16.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game, is checking them.
“He has been great for us,” coach James Jones said. “The biggest difference this season is his efficiency offensively. He has been tremendous (with the growing hype), it hasn’t changed the way he has played one possession. He hasn’t changed his behavior toward his game or our team.”
With a break before Brown on Jan. 19, Jones had hit the road recruiting before practice Friday. Kingsley was about to go out afterward. Each recruiting cycle brings new stories. Few will match Oni’s.
“It’s true, Miye’s the first kid I’ve ever offered an opportunity to after just watching him on tape,” Jones said.
Think about that. There are thousands of young players who could put together a highlight video that could disproportionately inflate their value.
“I was born at night but not last night,” Jones said, breaking into a laugh. “I’ve been doing this a long time. Kids can put videos together, but what he was doing
wasn’t something anyone could do.
“He had this posterized dunk. But what I was impressed most by was his ability to find his teammates. That has transferred to us. He led us in assists last year out of the 3 spot. Sometimes special people slip through the cracks. He’s special.”
Oni was coming across the continent to New England one way or another. He had injured his knee as a 6-3 junior at Viewpoint School in Calabasas, Calif., and would play in only a few games. Oni said he was 5-9 tops as a freshman before sprouting to 6-5 as a senior. Running track and plyometrics helped keep his quickness. He emailed the top Division III schools and found interest from Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. He visited early that fall and committed.
“I was just enjoying my senior year in high school, playing with my friends and cousin,’” Oni said. “Williams is a great academic school. They’d been to the national D3 championship. Duncan Robinson played there.”
That’s when Kingsley went to Viewpoint around Christmas.
“We were done recruiting seniors,” Kingsley said. “I’m there to watch Christian Juzang (now at Harvard). I see this guy in the layup line, long, athletic and think, ‘Who is that?’ Found out he was a senior.
“Around April, his AAU coach Robert Icart of BTI Hoops, who I’ve known for a long time, called, and said, ‘I think I’ve got a guy for you.’ Here we go. You get a lot of these calls. But the first highlight on the video he sent was this ridiculous dunk in transition.”
Kingsley remembered the Christmas layup line. He went out to see Oni play AAU in April 2015. Oni and his dad came on an unofficial visit in May. Since Yale admissions had been
closed, there also was a plan to visit Suffield Academy where he could do a postgrad year.
“They had a delay on a connection in Washington D.C.,” Kingsley said. “They were supposed to be here four-five hours and instead it was an hour and a half tops.”
Miye got to see the campus in an hour. He sat with the coaches for 30 minutes.
“It was a whirlwind,” Kingsley said.
“It was all I needed,” Oni said. “I don’t really like officials visits anyway. It was perfect. I didn’t get a chance to visit Suffield, but I already liked the coach, Jeff Depelteau. I wasn’t worried.”
The Yale coaches, however, were worried when Oni took an official visit to Princeton. He took an unofficial visit to Stanford. As his AAU play got fire, so did the interest. Oni stuck with Yale. He stuck with Yale through eye-catching play at Suffield Academy where he broke Shabazz Napier’s National Prep School Invitational scoring record.
“I was comfortable with the Yale coaching staff,” Oni said. “They believed in me without seeing me much in person.”
Kingsley said he has been amazed at how quickly Oni has been able to improve once he focuses on a weakness.
“When he was at Suffield and drove to the basket in traffic unless it was a straight dunk he wasn’t a good finisher,” Kingsley said. “By the end of that year, he had gotten really good at it.”
“I didn’t practice finishing in high school,” Oni said. “I only wanted to shoot 3s. When I grew, I only wanted to practice my dunking. That had to change.”
It did. Oni does the Mikan Drill and variations of it around the rim every time he works out.
As a freshman at Yale, he found 3-point success. His sophomore year he didn’t shoot the 3 as well, but found ways to finish with both hands.
“This year he’s putting it all together,” Kingsley said.
On Friday, Oni was named to the Lou Henson Award midseason watch list for the nation’s top midmajor player.
“The trip to China, especially, Memphis, Miami, Duke, this year has been an amazing experience,” Oni said. “It has brought our team closer.”
And when the 2018-19 journey ends, he’ll have a decision. Will he stay for a senior year? Or go into the NBA Draft? The good news is the NCAA has finally created a process with the NBA undergraduate advisory committee for players to get feedback from NBA management. There will be workout invitations, too.
“We will sit down as a family and assess the pros and cons of everything,” Oni said. “No matter what, I’m going to get my degree at some point.”
Oni, a political science major, is a strong student, a smart guy. He will make the correct decision.