SB Nation: Semi Ojeleye has found the perfect fit at SMU

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Coming into the season, SMU was supposed to be a team with a solid shot at an NCAA Tournament bid. First-year coach Tim Jankovich was supposed to be able to count on Ben Moore as one of the best big men in the American Athletic Conference and Shake Milton as one of its best guards.

No one could have counted on Semi Ojeleye, two years removed from collegiate competition, emerging as one of the most improved players in the country and arguably the best player in the conference so far.

At 6’7 and 235 pounds, Ojeleye most often finds himself at the 4, with the 6’8 Moore playing in the middle for a small-but-strong SMU team. Ojeleye can muscle his way to a double-double on a given night, but has also made the second-most threes of anyone on the team and is shooting them at a 44 percent clip.

He credits his success so far this season to the SMU system: one that took him far too long to find.

“The system we have is all about sharing the ball and that’s why I get good shots,” he said. “It’s been great. Just the confidence I know my coach has in me and that my teammates have in me.”

Ojeleye’s ability to impact a game offensively from a variety of angles is what made him such an intriguing prospect as a recruit. It helped him land a spot in the prestigious Nike EYBL circuit in high school, and eventually a commitment to Duke.

Ojeleye arrived in Durham prior to the 2013-14 season as an under-the-radar top-50 recruit, if such a thing exists. Though he was ranked No. 40 in his class by ESPN, he joined Duke alongside one-and-done Jabari Parker and McDonald’s All-American Matt Jones.

On a roster that also included Rodney Hood, Quinn Cook, and Rasheed Sulaimon, Ojeleye was quickly buried on the bench. He appeared in just 17 games as a freshman, playing double-digit minutes only once, and averaging 1.6 points per game. The next year didn’t start out much better. His minutes increased slightly, but Ojeleye could not find consistent playing time, and at the end of the first semester, he decided to transfer.

Ojeleye settled on SMU, where he sat out the spring semester of the 2014-15 school year and the fall semester of 2015-16, per NCAA transfer rules. In that time, the Mustangs were banned from the postseason, and former head coach Larry Brown decided it made little sense to throw Ojeleye into conference play that January during a meaningless season.

Ojeleye redshirted the spring semester, meaning when he finally took the court in November, it had been nearly two years since he last played in a Division-I basketball game.

You can forgive the media for not setting high expectations for him.

His first game was against Gardner-Webb on the season’s opening night: one only the most die-hard SMU fan would watch when the college basketball world was offering so much more. He scored 26 points and had 14 rebounds in the 72-44 win, but no one seemed to notice.

Fast forward one week to Madison Square Garden and a game against Pittsburgh in the 2K Classic. Ojeleye lit up the World’s Most Famous Arena to the tune of 24 points on 9-for-17 shooting, with five rebounds and two blocks.

That put the college basketball world on notice.

At a time when transfers are often unfairly maligned for fleeing at the first sign of adversity, Ojeleye is a beacon for those who feel their skills can be better showcased elsewhere.

In fact, work ethic has never been a problem for the junior. Jankovich even expressed concern over his star’s willingness to spend hours in the gym, even on gamedays.

“He has already been the hardest worker away from practice time,” Jankovich said. “He’s a machine. We’re blown away. We’ve been around a lot of hard working guys. You set your clock by this guy.”

The night after the Pitt game, SMU was blown out by Michigan. Ojeleye struggled to find his rhythm all night, but still finished with 13 points and nine rebounds. Though the team seemed understandably dejected by the loss, Jankovich’s expectation for his unexpected star didn’t change.

“He’ll be up early tomorrow and he’ll be begging our manager to go shoot with him,” Jankovich said. “Then he’ll work on his body. Then he’ll eat correctly. Then he’ll go back to the gym and we’ll have to tell him ‘no.’”

Since then, Ojeleye has been a consistent force in the Mustangs’ lineup, scoring in double figures in all but one game and shooting 47 percent from the field. SMU has now won four games in a row after a rocky 4-3 start, but with conference play looming, competition will soon step up.

With his talent never in question, Ojeleye’s journey has only been about finding the right fit. A Duke team with several other players who fit his profile wasn’t it. For now, at least, it seems Ojeleye and SMU are a perfect match.