PP: Before basketball in Woodbury, Oturus were playing ping pong in Nigeria

BleedGopher

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 11, 2008
Messages
60,588
Reaction score
15,671
Points
113
per Greder:

Word is starting to spread across the Big Ten basketball scene this winter about Daniel Oturu. He’s making people notice, on and off the court.

The Gophers basketball team’s 6-foot-10 freshman center from Woodbury, Minn., and Cretin-Derham Hall made the short trip to the U as one of the nation’s top recruits in the 2018 class. And through 25 games, he has established himself as one of the most promising young players in the conference.

Peeling back that initial layer reveals much more.

He was born Akinfayose Daniel Oturu in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1999 to Nigerian immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in 1990.

Oturu’s size, including a 7-foot-3 wingspan, comes from his 6-foot-1 mother Deborah, and his athleticism comes from his 5-foot-6 father Francis, who was a member of Nigeria’s top table tennis team in the 1980s.

Daniel has shown a precocious poise around the basket in his first collegiate season, leading Big Ten freshmen in field goal percentage (56.5), as well as rebounds (7.3) and blocks (1.6) per game. But with a pingpong paddle in hand, he can’t hang with his 61-year-old dad.

“I’ve played him, but he always crushes me,” Daniel said.

https://duluthnewstribune.com/sport...oodbury-oturus-were-playing-ping-pong-nigeria

Go Gophers!!
 

good article.

I think his dad is generously listed at 5'6"
 




Top Bottom