ALL IN TO WIN: Oguine sacrifices personal success, finishes a Griz legend

Standing under the basket, Jamar Akoh watched Michael Oguine soar.

The Montana Grizzlies were playing Washington in their last non-conference game of the 2017-2018 season, three days before Christmas.

Midway through the first half, Travis DeCuire dialed up one of his favorite out-of-bounds plays, a lob from under the basket to a cutting Oguine for an alley-oop.

Drawing up a play like that for a 6-foot-1 guard isn’t typical. But then again, Oguine isn’t your typical mid-major combo guard.

“We had a lob from out of bounds, and I was kind of standing under [the basket], and I saw them throw it up,” Akoh, Montana’s stout senior center, remembered. “He went up and got it, and I think even everybody in the crowd was just kind of like, Woah, he really got up for that one.”

Everybody connected to the Montana basketball program has a Michael Oguine moment, a jaw-dropping flash when they realized the senior guard was something special.

Senior wing Bobby Moorehead also recalled the alley-oop against Washington.

“I just remember turning around and going, wow, Mike,” Moorehead said. “And I don’t know if that was the highest he’s ever jumped, but that was the time I went, wow, that’s ridiculous.”

UM assistant head coach Chris Cobb had his Oguine moment after Oguine’s first game in maroon and silver, when the freshman guard played 34 minutes off the bench and scored 17 points on just seven field goal attempts in a 74-72 win over Boise State.

“In his first college basketball game, you knew right away, there was something different about him,” Cobb said.

It was the same way for fellow assistant Rachi Wortham, who joined the Griz staff before Oguine’s sophomore year.

Thanks to Oguine suffering an injury to his shooting hand before the season, Wortham didn’t see him play in a real game until his season debut, on November 27 at South Dakota.

“He hadn’t played in a long time, got beat backdoor the first or second possession he was out there,” Cobb said. “The guy’s going up for a layup … all of a sudden Mike comes out of nowhere and just pins the shot up on the backboard. It gave us some life, and then all of a sudden we were back in the game.

“I remember Rachi had never seen him play in a game before, and was like, ‘Wow. That’s pretty incredible to make that play on like the second possession he was in the game.’”

That otherworldly athleticism is the first thing people notice about Oguine.

But it’s not what stays with them.

“Mike, I always say it, I’ve coached college basketball for 10 years, he’s top three in terms of, not just basketball players, but young men,” Cobb said. “He’s embraced everything that we’ve thrown at him, from the biggest moments. He’s very likable, he’s very humble, and goes about his business the right way. He treats this like a profession. He works hard, and he approaches the game the right way.”

In four years, Oguine, despite making such a good first impression, has never once made the All-Big Sky first team, and he likely won’t this year, either. He’s been overshadowed constantly at UM, first by then-senior Martin Breunig, then by back-to-back transfers — Ahmaad Rorie, the future pro, and Akoh, the final piece on a championship team.

Even recently, when Akoh went down with an injury two weeks ago, it’s been junior Sayeed Pridgett who’s taken the spotlight with back-to-back conference player of the week awards.

But ask anyone around the team, and they’ll tell you: Oguine has been the most important player for the Griz almost since he stepped foot on campus.

Watching him dunk — or sky for a rebound, or get to the free-throw line a league-best eight times a game — is attention-grabbing. Watching him willingly fade into the background, again and again and again, as he lets others get their touches, is less so.

But Oguine has never waivered in his commitment to winning.

“There’s a lot of things you can get out of a college basketball career,” Oguine said. “First-team all-conference, MVP, being the guy, the man, those are all things that are possible. But winning is another thing, and that’s more of a team thing. There are people, for whatever reason, who can chase those other accolades.

”You can score all those points, do all those other things, but at the end of the day, you’re going to have to look at yourself, like, Am I really happy? Do I feel like I had a good career? Did I really win anything? Do I feel like I took the program to another level? And those are the things you’re really going to have to ask yourself. I feel like, when I’m done with my career, I can really be proud of what happened.

“Regardless of how many points I score. I could not score another point in my career, and I could still look up and be like, Okay, I was able to do something meaningful.”

When Oguine was growing up in northwest Los Angeles, his parents always insisted that schoolwork, not basketball, was what would bring him success.

That philosophy was hard-won. It was what brought Samuel and Debra Oguine from Nigeria to California in the early 1990s after they qualified for American immigration on student visas. It’s what landed Oguine’s older sisters academic scholarships to Johns Hopkins and Southern Cal, respectively. 

Oguine’s eventual path to Missoula started even earlier. His grandfather in Nigeria learned English from British colonists in the mid-20th century, as the sun was finally setting on the British Empire.

“My grandfather learned how to read and write and speak English from the people that came over from England, with the Anglican Church,” Oguine said. “I guess you could trace it back to there. My grandpa grew up, he was a very educated man, my grandma as well, she was a schoolteacher. I guess from there, it instilled in [my parents], and they passed it on to me and my sisters.”

 Oguine’s parents and their focus on education meshed with athletics when the family settled in one of the country’s preeminent basketball cradles — Los Angeles.

As a ‘90s baby, Oguine was born at the perfect time to watch, and fall in love with, the Shaq-Kobe Lakers of the early 2000s, one of the greatest basketball teams of all time.

It’s a fandom that he carries to this day, and it ignited his love for the game.

“When my parents came here from Nigeria, basketball wasn’t really a big thing over there, it was mainly soccer,” Oguine said. “But we just happened to be in Los Angeles, and the Lakers were good at the time, and that’s kind of what sparked my interest in basketball. If it wasn’t for that, who knows, I might not even have played basketball.”

Once he did start playing the game, the competitive crucible of LA proved to be the perfect place for Oguine to develop his game.

Current NBA all-stars Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson and DeMar DeRozan are just of the big names that have come out of the Los Angeles area in recent years, continuing a line of legends that runs back through players like Baron Davis, Reggie Miller, Dennis Johnson and Gail Goodrich.

“I think about the unique opportunity that presented itself playing basketball and growing up in an area like that,” Oguine said. “You’re exposed to a lot of different things. I came into contact with, played against a lot of great players, a lot of different players … so that kind of prepared me.”

The two pillars of his childhood — his parents’ emphasis on hard work, and the devotion to basketball that he shared with his whole city — turned Oguine into a star.

More than the talent, he showed early in his career that he was able to raise his game even further in big moments.

Cobb raved about the state championship game Oguine’s junior year at Chaminade Prep, when he scored 24 second-half points in a close win.

Led by DeCuire and Cobb, Montana recruited him hard, and Oguine returned the love.

“I could definitely tell that they wanted me the most,” Oguine said. “The recruiting process is interesting because there are so many different levels of interest. You have your schools that really want you, they really see you making an impact. Then you have your schools that will say, yeah, we like you, you might not be our first guy, but we’ll take you. … When it really came down to it, I wanted to go to the place where those guys really wanted me. It didn’t really matter that I had no idea about Montana at all.”

He learned quickly. His first visit to Montana, in September 2014, came on a beautiful fall day.

That night, he stepped outside to take a phone call.

“After a couple minutes, I was like, hold on, my bones are freezing,” Oguine said. “What happened, it was just sunny. That’s when I experienced it, like, true cold. It’s a different lifestyle here.”

Now, four years later, the 2019 senior class might be the best in school history. Oguine has been its figurehead.

Rorie and Akoh transferred in, meaning Oguine and Moorehead are the only two players in the class who have been in Missoula for all four years. And, unlike Moorehead, who took some time to find the right role, Oguine’s been one of the leading stars since that first Boise State game.

He started 30 games as a true freshman, averaging 11 points, third on the team, and 4.4 rebounds, second. He was the first true freshman in Montana history to average double figures scoring his rookie season. 

He won the team-wide award for best defensive player.

Even more impressively, he showed his total commitment to the team right away.

“With the program, you have to … try to convince everyone in the program to put the program first,” DeCuire said. “But it’s very difficult to do, and you have to be lucky enough to have people that already feel things that way and believe in that and don’t need convincing, and you use them as examples. And Michael’s been that for us for four years.”

That, and his willingness to engage with the Missoula community despite his different background, made him a fan favorite.

“He’s definitely embraced it,” Akoh said. “Anybody that’s come up to him, or people in the stands, the community, going to the grocery store, whatever it may be, he’s definitely a very positive young man. And he’s really smart, and he’s humble as well. I think that’s the biggest thing, his humility. It allows him to be special. Anyone that’s ever talked to him knows, he’s not really full of himself and he’s genuine.”

The expectations were high after his freshman year, which made it all the more challenging when he broke his shooting hand in preseason and had to sit out for the beginning of his sophomore season.

One year after making it to the Big Sky championship, the Griz finished 16-16 and lost to Idaho in the first round of the conference tournament.

“The hardest part for me, I guess, was managing expectations,” Oguine said. “I came in and had a good freshman year … [Breaking my hand] kind of set me back. That was my shooting hand, and that was the first time I’d had a real injury like that. I came back really early from my injury and I felt like I couldn’t even shoot the ball. I was in this huge slump, like, ‘What happened? I was supposed to be building on this year that I had before.’ So that was definitely a challenge for me.”

If there’s one word that describes Oguine’s Montana career, it’s sacrifice.

He sacrificed when he came to Missoula, leaving his family behind and turning down interest from Ivy League schools, among others. He thought it gave him the best chance to be part of a winning program.

On the court, he sacrifices his body to win, throwing his body at larger defenders to shoot free throws at one of the highest rates in the country.

On the defensive end, it’s even worse. His disruption helped earn him Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year honors last season.

“Mike, from Day 1, has been someone that’s impacted the game on the defensive end with steals and rebounds and loose balls, taking charges,” DeCuire said. “Sometimes, those are plays that involve sacrifice. You’re giving up your body to take a charge. There’s contact being made, and sometimes it doesn’t always feel good to sacrifice your body on the defensive end for the good of the team. [But] Mike has been that guy from Day 1.”

Sophomore year introduced him to his biggest sacrifice. That year was also Rorie’s first playing for the Griz, and the Oregon transfer’s arrival meant that Oguine’s role would change.

Rorie and then Akoh joining the Griz meant Oguine’s role actually took a step back in the years that followed.

The Grizzlies very rarely run plays for Oguine, as opposed to Rorie, who handles the ball and initiates the offense, or Akoh, whose role is emphasized in the Montana offense with a steady diet of post touches — and that meant that Oguine had to make an adjustment.

It was a challenge that athleticism and talent and hard work couldn’t solve, and just about every player in the country would struggle with. 

There are two things that helped Oguine succeed — his selflessness and ability to put winning first, and his on-court skillset.

“I was able to sacrifice my own individual accolades, my own accomplishments, for the good of the team,” Oguine said. “And I feel like I’m going to be happy with myself at the end of the day because I made that decision.”

His teammates noticed.

 

“He’s definitely sacrificed this season, as far as the shots he takes,” Akoh said. “It’s good though. He’s a very selfless person, so I don’t think it really bothers him at all, as long as we’re winning. So, that’s a really positive thing, for him to sacrifice like that and just be unbothered, as long as we’re winning. It just goes to show that he wants us to win.”

Plus, Oguine’s game is perfectly suited to thriving off the ball, which he’s shown to devastating effect this season. And despite never leading his team in scoring per game, he will finish his career as one of just nine players to score more than 1,500 points as a Griz. 

Rorie, Akoh and Pridgett are all ahead of him in the pecking order, but he’s used his athleticism to get offensive rebounds and putbacks (38 offensive rebounds in 24 games, second on the team). When the ball swings his way, he knocks down open shots (39.2 percent from 3, third on the team). He’s grown into a sharp cutter, using off-ball movement to get looks that way. His defense remains stellar.

All that means that he’s one of the best players in the country at impacting the game without having the ball.

And when DeCuire really needs him, Oguine is still one of the best, most efficient scorers in the conference.

Two weekends ago, Eastern Washington completed a big second-half comeback to tie the Griz at 68-68 with 2:45 left.

After a timeout, the Griz drew up several plays in a row for Oguine, who scored on four straight possessions to close the game and give Montana a 75-74 win.

“There’s no question that at a lot of other schools, he’d average a lot of points, and here it’s a little bit different,” Moorehead said. “But here, you know, he’s not always the first option, but I think he’s accepted that and he’s made the most of it. He shoots really good percentages for not shooting the ball a ton, and he can go 4-of-6 for 15 points. He’s very efficient, just plays very hard. It’s a testament to buying into a program, for sure.”

The first time DeCuire met Oguine, they talked about winning.

“My first conversation with him, [when we were] recruiting, was short, simple, to the point,” DeCuire said. “We talked a little bit about what the program has to offer, what we’re about, how important winning is. He kind of shared the same thoughts in terms of wanting to win, play for championships, and be a part of something special. And when I heard those things come out, it wasn’t, ‘How many minutes will I play? How many shots will I get?’ It was, ‘I’ll just be grateful to be a part of success.’ Shortly after that conversation, I called coach Cobb and said, we’ve got to have this kid.”

Years later, Oguine has backed up what he said then, over and over again.

The final proof, appropriately, has come on the scoreboard, not the stat sheet.

If everything goes to plan this season, Oguine will have been a part of three 20-win teams in four years, including two that have won 25 games.

And when his career is over, the Montana fans will remember two things about Oguine.

Like Akoh standing under the basket against Washington, they’ll remember the kid who could fly through the air, making the impossible seem possible.

And they’ll remember the quiet sacrifices that he made to help the team, not as jawdropping but no less important.

“I’ve learned a lot about myself, a lot about how the world works,” Oguine said. “I learned to appreciate things, because here in Montana, compared to other schools in our conference, this is the place to be. But you look at it on a bigger scale, when people say, ‘University of Montana, oh, where’s that? Is that a DI school?’ They have no idea. I learned to appreciate the things that have been offered to me. I’ve had a great career. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez and Jason Bacaj. All Rights Reserved.