THUNDER BAY – Michael Okafor has an NCAA pedigree, but he’s being asked to do a whole lot of things he wasn’t expected to do at Manhattan College.
The fourth-year guard has taken on the role of floor general and is eating up minutes for the Lakehead Thunderwolves – when he’s not sitting due to foul trouble - a far cry from his U.S. college experience, where he averaged just 7.3 minutes of court time per outing.
The Toronto native, who transferred to Lakehead after the 2019-20 campaign, is 10th in Ontario University Athletics in scoring, averaging 21.3 points per night for a Thunderwolves team still trying to carve its niche.
Okafor, named the men’s basketball player of the month for October, hit the game-winning three-pointer in his team’s opener on the road against McMaster, but found early foul trouble in LU’s ensuing games and as a result had to adjust his style of play.
Not surprisingly, the Wolves lost all three subsequent contests, and sit at 1-3, heading out on the road this weekend for a pair against league-leading scorer Ali Sow and the Laurier Golden Hawks.
Staying out of the officials’ cross-hairs is goal No. 1 for the 22-year-old Okafor, who also played two seasons at Harcum College before transferring to Manhattan.
“I’d like to see me this weekend being disciplined, knowing when to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive,” he said. “I want to be more vocal on and off the court and see how that contributes to the game.”
Getting back into the win column, after three straight losses, is huge, he added.
But their record isn’t the end of the world for a team that was ranked 11th in the nation prior to last week’s action.
“One-and-three doesn’t matter. It’s still early in the season. I think we’re going to be highly competitive in this league.”
Coach Ryan Thomson, who brought in Okafor and fellow NCAA transfer Dylan Morrison, said he knows he’s asking Okafor to do a lot of new things. It’s going to take time, he said.
“When he was at Manhattan, he played the four. For us, he’s playing the one or the two, so there’s a lot more ball-handling ability, a lot more decisions to make and that he’s got to do. It’s kind of eye-popping how athletic he is, especially at this level,” Thomson said.
“It helps him get to the rim, but now it’s just understanding playing with a bit more pace and trying to get other guys more involved as more of a distributor and creator than he’s ever had to do previously.”
Okafor will be a huge part of the team’s success – or failure – but has plenty to work on, despite his experience south of the border.
“I think something that he’s still working on is attention to detail defensively. He’s got all the tools defensively, but to be able to put it together for 40 minutes of discipline, defence, not gambling and just being in the right spot and not fouling. For him, that’s really been the issue. In all our games he’s ended up with two fouls or three fouls, either late in the second quarter or early in the third. It impacts our rotation and it impacts his rhythm,” Thomson said.
Okafor, who had other playing options, said he’s in Thunder Bay to learn.
“That’s what sold me, the belief and the trust and all that,” he said.
“Individually, I just want to get better in some of the places that I lack. As a team, just winning that ‘ship and bringing back the big belt to Thunder Bay.”
