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Late bloomer Osunniyi looking forward to La Salle after prep year

05/22/2017, 1:45pm EDT
By Josh Verlin

Osun Osunniyi (above) will head to La Salle in 2018 after a prep year at Putnam Science (Conn.). (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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In the age of the internet and social media and their interaction with the basketball world, there isn’t really such a thing as a sleeper prospect anymore -- play well enough, and someone’s bound to make a discovery.

Osun Osunniyi is about as close as you’re going to get.

At Mainland Regional, a public school of about 1,400 ninth through 12th graders on the Jersey shore, Osunniyi began in 2013 as a 6-foot-1 freshman, having just started taking basketball seriously the year before.

With his skill set rather behind those who’d been training hard for scholarships since a young age, his path towards a scholarship needed a little help in the genetics department. He knew there was some height remaining in his lanky frame, but how much was yet to be determined.

Turned out there was quite a bit.

“My dad’s 6-1, so I kind of thought [I’d get to] 6-4 or 6-5,” he said. “And I just kept growing, and hit 6-9, so…”

So suddenly, Osunniyi found himself getting the attention of Division I basketball programs during the summer after his junior season.

So by the midpoint of his senior year, he’d pulled in a pair of scholarship offers, from La Salle and Lafayette.

So a year from now, he’ll be getting ready to play in the Atlantic 10.

Lafayette’s plan was to bring in Osunniyi for this fall, but the La Salle coaches pitched him a different option: go to prep school in 2017-18 and join the Explorers a year later.

After considering it, Osunniyi agreed, committing to La Salle in March as a member of its incoming 2018 class.

Along with several local prep schools, La Salle head coach John Giannini also brought up Putnam Science Academy (Conn.), which is where rising Explorers sophomore Saul Phiri did his prep year.

“So my dad and I looked into it, went up for a visit, talked to the coaches, met a few of the guys,” Osunniyi said. “It's up in Connecticut which is kind of an isolated area, but you’re going to get basketball up there and that’s what I want, I want to work on my basketball and not worry about anything else, so that's why I choose Putnam.”

As a senior at Mainland Regional, Osunniyi averaged a double-double of more than 14 points and 11 rebounds per game, helping the Mustangs to a 22-6 record and league championship before losing to Winslow in the South Jersey Group 3 semifinals. But a lot of that production came because he was significantly bigger, longer and more athletic than most of his competition, an advantage he won’t have at the collegiate level.

So Osunniyi has a lot of work to do in his year at Putnam, though there’s certainly an opportunity for him to make a big impact in his first year in college

When he arrives on La Salle’s campus at 20th and Olney next fall, current redshirt junior forwards Demetrius Henry and Tony Washington will have both just exhausted their eligibility.

The only other two options in the middle will be Cian Sullivan a raw 7-3 center who redshirted this season, and Miles Brookins, a 6-9 post from California who arrives this summer to begin his freshman season.

“They need a guy who can protect the rim, basically ,and I can block a lot of shots, so they pitched I’d help the team out a lot,” Osunniyi said. “Coach G, he’s a great guy...he’s straightforward with you.”

Though he’s now 6-9, Osunniyi only weighs about 190 pounds, so adding some muscle and weight to his frame will be crucial before he begins college. He also wants to work on his mid-range game so he can be somewhat versatile at the next level, though it’s going to be a while before he can reliably put the ball on the floor more than once or twice.

“I don’t want to be just a guy that sits in the post,” he said. “I want to be a versatile, all-around player that can shoot the jump shot, play the post, all that.”

Whatever it takes to try to make up for lost time.


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