Raleigh native on Nigerian national team knows men's basketball gold is not a given for Team USA
Posted July 27, 2021 3:22 p.m. EDT
Updated July 28, 2021 4:55 p.m. EDT
On July 10, the Nigerian basketball team faced Team USA in a pre-Olympics exhibition game. Raleigh native Stan Okoye, who has played for the Nigerian national basketball team for eight years, including in the 2016 Rio Games, was key on the court with a put-back dunk over the head of Golden State Warriors power forward Draymond Green. Okoye's Nigeria dominated Team USA.
Okoye said, “Little moments like that just kept us going and gave us more energy to finish out the game. At the very end, they made a little run, and who knows what would’ve happened if there were more time, but there’s 40 minutes in the European game, so it worked out.”
It was the first time an African team has beaten the US men’s national team. Okoye called it "a new era” for Nigerian basketball.
“Traditionally, playing against [Team USA], it’s never been close. It has always been lopsided. Whenever they play a team from Africa ... they usually dominate Africa, but during this new era of Nigerian basketball – where a lot of players are coming from and playing with the national team, representing their country – we’ve been able to take that over,” Okoye said.
Okoye also explains that for countries like Nigeria, Olympic competitions mean more than just wins and medals.
“Games like this always serve as motivation for young kids to go out and chase a dream," he said.
"There are so many Nigerians that I know personally who play basketball – NCAA, overseas, NBA – so with that being said, the game could be pioneered from our country, grown in Africa, if the resources were put there and the same opportunities were given like we have here (in the USA),” Okoye said.
Having grown up in North Carolina, Okoye values the deeper connections he has formed with his roots and family by representing the African nation where his parents were born.
Okoye explained, “We all learned the Nigerian national anthem, and I didn’t know it before then. The words in the anthem just mean so much: ‘To serve our fatherland with love and strength and faith ...’ It’s very different from the American national anthem because of what I know it has been founded upon. To be able to represent my parents’ country, my country as well is a very special thing.”
Okoye is not the only athlete giving North Carolina Olympics fans more than one team to root for: UNC-Chapel Hill stars will dive for New Zealand and Mexico, a North Carolina A&T runner is a member of Liberia’s track team and even Germany’s basketball coach once played at UNC-CH.
With the Games now in full swing and USA basketball’s stunning loss to France Sunday morning, Okoye believes there is real competition for basketball gold this year.
“There’s so many other teams that have a chance to go out there to medal. Not being biased, I think Nigeria, without me, still has a good chance. Other than Nigeria and the US, I think Argentina, Spain and Australia have great chances to medal. It’s so balanced looking at the groups. It’s gonna be a very entertaining competition,” Okoye said.
Julia Fairchild Roth is a junior at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media specializing in sports broadcast.
