Whenever the soiled underbelly of (fill in the blank) – name the industry or enterprise … sports, business, politics, etc. — makes its routine appearance, remember that good guys like Texas Tech forward Norense Odiase still live among us.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever pulled for an individual player like I pull for Norense,” Texas Tech basketball coach Chris Beard said in an interview earlier this season. “And not just because I’m his coach. I just have so much respect for him.”
Though his numbers are modest, Odiase plays an essential role for Texas Tech.
A survey of his teammates and coaches came up with various words to describe him, in no particular order: Faithful, hardworking, empathetic, coachable, selfless, self-aware, relatable, intelligent, persistent, leader, devoted and determined.
That’s not some sappy claptrap dreamed up from the imagination of a writer. That’s what the most sincere people, who know him best, say about him.
It’s not difficult to see, considering his role in Texas Tech’s second consecutive run to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 epitomizes all of those things.
On offense, the 6-foot-9 fifth-year senior’s job is to set any number of screens – ball, fade, up and down – to get the Red Raiders’ scorers opportunities. Then crash the boards. On the other end, defend and rebound.
All very unglamorous tasks in a world in which there are all too many “me’s” in team.
Yet, Odiase – a Fort Worth North Crowley graduate, whose name is pronounced Oh-DEE-ah-say — loves his often thankless work.
“He is a great teammate, a tough player, who does all the small things for us,” said Brandone Francis, a fellow Tech senior. “He doesn’t get enough credit for those kinds of things. He’s a very disciplined guy … and a great human being to be around.
“I’m happy he’s on my side.”
(Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
The Red Raiders (28-6), the three seed in the West Region, play No. 2 Michigan (30-6) at 8:30 p.m. Thursday in Anaheim, Calif.
To the winner is a place in the Elite Eight with a date on Saturday with either No. 1 Gonzaga or No. 4 Florida State.
Odiase, who has already graduated with a degree in media strategies and working on a master’s, was nothing short of great in Texas Tech’s second-round 78-58 victory over Buffalo, collecting a season-high 15 rebounds, including seven on the offensive end.
He also finished well around the basket, scoring 14 points, another season high. When he is that effective, Tech is all the more difficult to play.
How he got here tells you much about Odiase.
Norm Peterson wanted to be on bar stool. Odiase wanted badly to be on a major college basketball court.
He called it “God’s will.”
“He has brought me here,” he said.
His parents were immigrants from Nigeria, and, yes, their native country’s most famous basketball player “was a hero in the house.”
Odiase’s father is a pharmacist and his mother a nurse. He has a fraternal twin brother, Nick, also a Tech graduate, who aspires to medical school. The brothers are 23. Two older sisters arrived before, two 27-year-olds who are also twins.
“My mother said she prayed about it.”
Odiase went to school in the Crowley school district. From Jackie Carden Elementary he graduated to Crowley Middle School and then to North Crowley.
While Hakeem Olajuwon was a family influencer, it wasn’t The Dream who inspired Odiase to try basketball. It was a middle school coach who recognized size when he saw it.
Odiase came up through Tommy Brakel’s highly successful North Crowley basketball program, which has sent dozens of players off to play college basketball. Among them have been Keith Langford and Willie Warren, both with NBA experience, and former TCU players Kevin Langford and Kyan Anderson.
Odiase was underrecruited compared with those other guys, holding only some lower Division I offers as a high school senior.
He was young for his class, 17 when he would have matriculated to college, and his game was still raw, as was his body, which was holding a little more weight than he probably needed.
Injury, which has tailed him, also intervened in the the summer between his junior and senior seasons. A high sprained ankle — “a bad one” — during summer ball hurt his development and, subsequently, his recruitment.
“I remember he and I talking, and he said, ‘Coach, I think I can play on a bigger stage. I want to play on a bigger stage. I said, ‘Norense, I think you can.’”
(Photo by Yong Teck Lim/Getty Images)
Brakel recommended Odiase to Ganon Baker, a co-founder of Elev8 Academy in Delray Beach, Fla., for some high school postgraduate basketball work. Odiase spent a year there in the development program.
The regimen helped him further develop, work on his body and get his explosiveness back.
“Next thing you know,” Brakel said, “he’s being recruited on that exact stage he wanted to play in. It’s not just a work ethic, but a passion to succeed. When a kid has that in them, it gives them that drive. He has that.”
Odiase ultimately chose Texas Tech over Georgia. It helped that his brother was in school in Lubbock.
It hasn’t been all smooth.
Odiase has persevered through two major foot injuries, one that cost him almost all of the 2016-17 season. He remade his body from the chubby teen of 270 (probably plus) as a freshman to a lean, muscle-bound 250.
The coach who recruited him to Tech, Tubby Smith, left, but Odiase adapted to Beard’s program.
Beard and Brakel both noted that many players might have shut it down and left after the injuries and coaching change.
“But that’s just not who he is,” Brakel said.
During this season, two cousins were killed in a car accident in Lubbock. Odiase stayed with the team, which rallied around him. So did Brakel.
“I know he really struggled with it,” Brakel said.
“I believe the measure of a man comes through how you push through adversity,” Odiase said in an interview before his cousins’ tragic accident. “The response you have toward something is what is most important. Everything in life is different for each person.
“There are always going to be things that you can’t control, but you can control your controllables and you can always give your maximum effort. You can control your leadership, enthusiasm and consistency. That’s my job for this team. I need to be the most consistent leader I can be every day.”
(Lead photo: Getty Images)
