Onoh US-bound, but Gilas Women stint still a possibility
The potential of Favour Onoh is so enormous that even after sitting out Season 87 of the UAAP women’s basketball tournament, the 6-foot-4 Nigerian center still got recruited out of the University of the Philippines and into the Oklahoma State University program.
And it is a mutual parting of ways, with the UP Office for Athletics and Sports Development itself wishing Onoh all the best in the next part of her student-athlete career, and maybe later on, as a naturalized player of the Gilas Pilipinas Women’s program.
Onoh, through a statement released Wednesday, said that she is seeking further development, but not without thanking the very school that opened this pathway.
“I believe OSU will allow me to develop more,” she said. “I would not be able to have this kind of opportunity without UP and the skills I learned not just in basketball, but also in life.”
Onoh averaged 11 points, 14.9 rebounds, 2.9 blocks, 1.4 steals, and 1.4 assists to earn Rookie of the Year honors in Season 86 as the Fighting Maroons made the Final Four for the first time in 15 years.
Onoh and guard Louna Ozar formed a formidable Fighting Maroons tandem that had not only the UP community excited.
Potent frontline
But a knee injury on Onoh tore those projections to shreds, shelving the foreign student-athlete for the entirety of the next season as UP finished fifth.
Set to fly to Oklahoma on June 12, Onoh’s move to the States won’t complicate her bid to become a naturalized Filipino citizen, according to an Inquirer source that is familiar with the inner workings of the national basketball program.
The 19-year-old is being groomed to shore up the Gilas Pilipinas Women’s naturalized player pool, which, as things stand, is composed only of playmaker Vanessa de Jesus.
Reeling Onoh, at a time when the Gilas frontline only features Jack Danielle Animam, should also make sense as the team can have a truly formidable inside presence.
