skip navigation

Obinna steps up for St. Joe's men in Big 5 win

12/09/2021, 12:30am EST
By Jerome Taylor

Jerome Taylor (@ThatGuy_Rome)
––

Averaging three points per game heading into his senior year was probably not how Ejike Obinna pictured his collegiate basketball career going. But that’s where he stood at the end of Vanderbilt’s 2020-2021 season. Through seven games in his new home with Saint Joseph’s, the big man is right where he wants to be. 

Ejike Obinna dunks a basketball

Ejike Obinna (above) scored a career-high 20 points and was one rebound from a double-double. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Obinna – a fifth-year graduate student with another year of eligibility due to COVID – understands that life has its ups and downs, and being able to get through them is what’s important. For the Enugu, Nigeria, native, that type of resiliency is a part of him. 

In his native language, the Igbo word “Ejike,” which the 6-foot-10 center wears upon the back of his jersey, means “life is not by force.”

“It’s part of who I am. It’s my family name,” Obinna said. “In my everyday life, not just playing basketball but the things that I do on a daily basis, I know that if you fall you get back up, you keep going and I really do appreciate that every African name has a meaning. It just means so much. It’s powerful.”

Through nine games, the Hawks (5-4) have been benefited from Obinna’s mentality and play, and in Wednesday’s game, Obinna had his best performance as Hawk, scoring a career-high 20 points (9-13 FG; 2-4 FG) in a 78-71 victory over Penn (3-9). 

Obinna had only scored 10 or more points four times in his career before arriving on Hawk Hill, but in his first season with the Hawks, he is putting up career highs across the stat sheet, averaging seven rebounds per game and 13.2 ppg on 65 percent from the field.

“If you ask him, he could have been doing this for the last four years,” Saint Joseph’s head coach Billy Lange said. “He claims this is how he was in high school."

“I think [the scoring] has always been there. It’s just the situation… I just needed a fresh start,” Obinna said.

At Vanderbilt, the Virginia Academy product had difficulty establishing a rhythm while going through the Bryce Drew to Jerry Stackhouse coaching transition. But after deciding he wanted to transfer, Obinna knew he wanted to go north, and Saint Joseph’s offered familiarity due to former Hawks head coach Phil Martelli recruiting him in high school. 

“I’ve been familiar with St. Joe’s. Me and the old staff would talk, and I’d been here before, prior to going to Vandy,” Obinna said. “When I was getting ready to leave Nashville, I knew I wanted to go north, and I felt like God was calling me up north, and I felt like St. Joe’s and Coach Lange was the best decision for me.”

Obinna’s comfort with the Hawks has been growing by the day. And after his Paycom Wooden Legacy performance (18 points and 10 rebounds vs. USC; 17 points vs. Georgetown), Lange knew he had something special. 

“I thought when we got on the plane coming back from Anaheim, that we had one of the most impressive frontcourt players in a quadrant of good teams,” Lange said. “That’s when I’m like, ‘This might be able to carry over into our conference.’”

In Wednesday night’s contest against the Quakers, Obinna was unquestionably the best front court player on the floor. 

On the offensive end, Obinna was able to score both as a high-ball-screen roll man and with his back to the basket taking advantage of an undersized Quaker team that is without the service of freshman Nick Spinosa and junior Max Lorca-Lloyd.

Jordan Hall shoots a basketball

Jordan Hall (above) set a new career high with 33 points. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

In their absence, Michael Wang stepped into the starting lineup and Michael Moshkovitz was the first player off the bench for the Quakers in an effort to deter Obinna. 

By the 3:30 mark in the first half, Obinna saw his first double team, which showed the next step in Obinna’s progression as a player: passing from the post.

“I thought he had a couple of good kickouts that might not have led to assists but led to a shot that [Penn] had to think about or led to an extra pass that may have went in that gave someone else an assist,” Lange said. “I’m just proud of his development… in all the years that I’ve coached at all the different levels, Ejike Obinna has improved the most from day one till now more than any player I’ve coached.”

Throughout the night, Obinna’s presence on the inside put the Quaker defense in a vulnerable position, opening things up for the Hawks’ perimeter players like Jordan Hall, who also finished with a career-high, dropping 33 points (12-19 from the field, 8-11 3pt fg), including five threes in the second half. 

“[Obinna] is a mismatch problem. When we give him the ball, back to the basket, the whole team collapses on him,” Hall said. “We got shooters on the outside, and he kicks out, or he’s going to get a bucket, and he was deciding to do both today, and the ball was going in the rim, so it worked for us.”

“What Obinna does is he gives us the ability to collapse the defense and if they feel like they have to double him, now some of those shots that you need to get on rhythm, threes we’re able to get because he does that,” Lange said.

Hall and Obinna were effective all night as an inside-out duo. But in crunch time, Hall made the plays to finish off the Quakers. Starting midway through the second half after the Quakers got within two points, Hall kept Penn at bay. During an 11-4 run out of the under 12 minute timeout, he had a hand in every Hawks bucket, scoring eight points (two threes and a lay-up) and an assist on a Taylor Funk three.

“I just wanted to win,” Hall said. “We were in the timeout in the huddle, and we talked to each other, ‘We just can’t let up and we were going to finish this one out strong,' and we did.”

And after the Quakers pulled within four with 38 seconds remaining in regulation, Hall knocked down a pull-up jumper from the elbow to put the game out of reach.

The Hawks play their third straight Big 5 game on Saturday when they take on Temple, and they’ll need their newfound 1-2 punch to stay hot.

“I feel like we’re going to get better, open shots and guys are going to be knocking down shots, and we’re going to be unstoppable,” Obinna said. 


D-I Coverage:

Small-College News:

Tag(s): Home  Jerome Taylor  College  Division I  St. Joe's