Ebuka Okorie named ACC Rookie of the Week for the first time
On Monday, December 29th, Stanford freshman point guard Ebuka Okorie was named ACC Rookie of the Week for the first time of his career. The award came after Okorie scored 30 points on 9-18 shooting from the field, 4-9 shooting from 3-point range, and 8-10 shooting from the foul line in an 88-80 home victory over CSUN on Saturday. Okorie became the first Stanford player to score 30+ points in back-to-back games since Landry Fields in the 2009-10 season.
RECAP: Stanford Men’s Basketball closes out non-conference with win over CSUN
Okorie is having a fantastic season for Stanford as one of the top freshmen in the country, averaging 22.8 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.9 assists, and 1.7 steals per game on 44.5% shooting from the field, 33.8% shooting from 3-point range, and 81.4% shooting from the foul line. He’s taken the court by storm and really surprised people by how much of an impact he’s made.
“Yeah, it’s, he gets it pretty easy,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said of Okorie’s scoring. “I don’t know how, but I mean, I just sit there and because I felt like I was looking at the stat sheet, I was like, Larry Hughes, man, we gave up 26. And we’re like man, he was awesome. I said jeez, what do the other teams say? What’s the other coach like, that guy had 30 you know and he had 32 last game. So, he’s just getting better.
“These are all good opportunities for him and you know, I was actually able to get mad at him. I have to find things to get mad at him, but he takes it, you know, so I don’t want, I don’t want him, it’d be easy just to give him his own rules and let him do, but he’s like, now what? This guy wants to be coached, wants to be great, let’s get great in all areas of the game and just appreciate everything he’s doing.”
Where Okorie really excels is his ability to get to the rim and make his foul shots. He’s extremely quick with the ball and does a great job of slicing through defenses to either get a layup or draw a foul. Either way, it’s likely two points for him. Defensively, he’s also really active as his 1.7 steals per game shows. The two main areas he needs to improve in are his 3-point shooting (which he did great at against CSUN) and his facilitating. Ideally, you’d like to see him averaging at least four assists per game but given how much he is being asked to score, I don’t want to nitpick too much on his assist numbers.
Overall, Okorie is playing exceptionally well for a freshman and is squarely in the national freshman of the year conversation. While I don’t think he’ll win the award, just the fact that he’s a top five to top ten freshman in the nation is incredible considering he came to Stanford as a 3-star recruit who was previously committed to Harvard. Now, he has an On3 College Rating of 4-star. It will certainly be fun to see how the rest of the season goes for him and how he does in ACC play.
Speaking of ACC play, Stanford will open up league play on Tuesday, December 30th at home against Notre Dame. Tipoff is set for 6:00 PM PT on ESPN2.
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