OGUNYEMI CHOSE FAMILY 1ST AT SIENA
Troy native represents Capital District at MAAC Tourney
TROY, N.Y. >> Sitting at the end of Siena’s bench on Senior Day, shifting spots between the Saints reserves and team managers, was an 11-yearold boy in a too-big-for-him Siena jersey with the number 0 plastered on the front and back.
It was Quentin Ogunyemi, the younger brother of Siena senior forward Javion Ogunyemi. The elder Javion wore the actual No. 0 jersey out on the Times Union Center court. Quentin was giddy at the chance to feel like he was a part of the game. Be a part of what his older brother worked for over the last four years.
For Javion, Siena basketball and family are intertwined so tightly and so tragically. The Troy native committed there because his sick mother wanted to watch him play. He came back to Siena after a brief transfer to Boston University because of his cousin’s murder. His hardships are both past him and still always at the forefront. He’ll be trying to make his first and only NCAA Tournament this weekend, and it will mean more because of where he’s been and what he’s been through.
“There’s good days with it. There’s bad days,” Ogunyemi said. “I try not to put too much pressure on myself. But any little success I have is for her. And not just for her. My cousin, my family members. Just everybody who’s every played a big role in my life. Everything I do is for them.”
Ogunyemi lived with just his mother, Thomasina Schultz, in Troy his entire life. He’d visit his father
Nick Ogunyemi in Brooklyn over the summers. But it was mostly just him and his mom. Then in August of 2013, three months before the start of his freshman season, she passed away from lung cancer at 37 years old. His was terrible in his freshman season, able still to rattle off his lowly statistics to this day. He felt the burden of his mother’s death, the pressure of playing in his hometown, and lacked the experience of a polished Division I big man.
He transferred after his sophomore season. He said he still loved head coach Jimmy Patsos and the Siena program, but he’d never spent extended time outside of New York. He wanted that chance. Three months into his time at BU, he called Patsos and said he wanted to come back. His cousin was murdered earlier that summer, and he needed to be there for the same family that had consoled him after his mother’s passing.
Ogunyemi averaged 15 points per game as a junior as he established himself as one of the premier
MAAC big men. He won a high school championship at Troy on the Times Union Center court. This weekend, he’ll have a final chance to win the MAAC there and leave the mark on a program that is engrained both in his on- and off-court life.
“The only change in him has been his size,” Nick Ogunyemi said. “Him growing up physically. His attitude has never changed. He tells me (his mother) is still one of the things that drives him to this day. He’ll say, ‘Dad, I miss my mom. I wish she was still there.’”
Ogunyemi initially committed to former Siena coach Mitch Buonaguro. When Buonaguro was fired by the Saints, it rested on the newly-hired Patsos to “beat the chest” of a program he described as being on life support. That meant keeping a prized recruit Ogunyemi, who was getting looks from Atlantic 10 schools.
Having never met Patsos, he asked to meet with him on three straight days. And the two sat in the Troy athletic director’s office with head coach Rich Hurley and Ogunyemi’s mother. Hurley was like Patsos in a lot of ways — boisterous and loud. It was going to be a good fit.
And besides, Ogunyemi
didn’t really have a choice. His mother wanted him at Siena — which Ogunyemi said left him with little choice. Just like in high school, when she told Hurley she wouldn’t let him play without proper grades, it was going to come down to what she wanted. So Siena it was.
“At first it was different,” Hurley said. “Coach Buonaguro and Coach Patsos are two totally different personalities. It took Javion a little warming up to a new coach. But he stayed committed... His mom passed away probably three months after that meeting. It was tough.”
Ogunyemi believes that being there for family doesn’t necessarily mean doing much. It didn’t mean saying any one particular thing. Or doing one particular thing. The criteria for him was physical presence. It was important for him just to be there. To be back home.
Patsos was happy to have him back after the transfer, and so was most of the program. There were some dissenters, though. Not everyone — including one or two teammates — felt he deserved to come back to Siena after being at BU for three months. And there was still the business of getting an NCAA waiver so he wouldn’t have to sit out a full year, which he eventually obtained.
“He wanted to come back here and he deserved a chance,” Patsos said. “If no one gave me a second chance, my God, I don’t know where I’d be. So he deserves a second chance.”
During the Jan. 4 game against Niagara, Ogunyemi had a chance to win a game on a put-back layup. It was easy and point blank and he missed it. It sent the team to a 4-11 record, the brink of total failure during a season that expected a lot more of him and of the team.
He took it personally, even when everyone told him he shouldn’t. And for a seven-game stretch during the conference season, he averaged more than 18 points per game — during an up-and-down on-court season, that might have been the best seven games of his entire career.
Patsos says of all the players on his current roster, Ogunyemi is one he’s most likely to someday bring back as an assistant coach.
When the team scrimmaged Columbia in the preseason, Ogunyemi asked if he could leave to spend the night with his father and brother in Brooklyn. Normally
Patsos would never send a player off on his own in New York City, but it’s different Ogunyemi, and he didn’t think twice in saying yes.
“Javion’s a great friend and a great teammate,” senior forward Brett Bisping said. “I know (a championship) would mean a lot to him, especially being from the area, he’s got a little more motivation. He’s worked so hard over these four years.”
Ogunyemi was a spectator as Troy High School lost its opening sectional game on Feb. 21. They had been the favorite, made a late push in the face of defeat, and still came up short.
Going to Troy games and being close with the current players is still important to Ogunyemi. Hurley is still important to Ogunyemi. After the dust had settled on the loss — after Ogunyemi waited outside the locker room and eventually told the players to keep their heads up — he got a ride home from Hurley.
He tried to joke with Hurley. He poked fun at the fact it was his quickest sectional exit. They talked about life, about Ogunyemi’s process for becoming a pro basketball player. For that car ride home, Ogunyemi was there
for him. Like he’d learned so much in the past four years of just what being there for someone meant.
“He was busting chops, trying to get a smile out of me,” Hurley said. “That’s just Javion. He has that kind of dry sense of humor.”
After his father Nick and his brother Quentin left Albany on Sunday to drive back home to Brooklyn, Oguyemi didn’t wait even an hour to text to see if they had made it home safely. During this week, he texted Quentin to make sure he was staying out of trouble so he’d be able come see the MAAC Tournament.
Quentin always talks of going to college now — he’s not even in high school yet. But he’s seen up close and personal what success in college looks like. He saw it when he sat on the bench for a Saints win on Senior Day.
Ogunyemi went to Siena because of family. He came back to Siena because of family. And he’s trying to win a MAAC championship for the family that’s still there, and the ones that aren’t.
“I’m just grateful everyday that I was able to play at Siena,” Ogunyemi said, “and be in my hometown, and actually produce and do something,”