She and her husband, Adebayo, chose quite a mouthful when they named their oldest child, their only son, who now happens to be one of the newest of the Wright State Raiders:
Samuel Olukoyejo Oritsegbubemi Alamutu.
Omayeli said that second middle name, loosely interpreted, means:
“God has answered our prayers.”
And now Wright State basketball coach Clint Sargent only can hope that Alamutu lives up to that name.
As he talked about “the madness” of the transfer portal and the extensive roster turnover it now brings after each season, he said quickly finding new players who fit your program, your needs, your personality, was like “speed dating.”
Sargent, who is just heading into his second season as the Raiders head coach, explained how his staff managed to sift through the nearly 2,700 players that ESPN said entered the portal this year:
“Between studying film, phone calls, hunting through stats, analyzing, I’d say we vetted 300 to 400 players.
“For our staff, it was all hands on deck. We broke it up by leagues and everybody had a certain accountability.”
“We prioritized what we wanted and we ended up bringing in seven players. We offered (scholarships) to four of them and got all four.”
The Raiders signed Bryan Etumnu, who played three seasons at Merrimack; T.J. Burch, who was a freshman at Ball State last season; Dominic Pangonis, who started his college career at Stephen F. Austin; and especially Alamutu, who was at Vermont four seasons, three of which the Catamounts went to the NCAA Tournament.
WSU lost four veteran players to the portal after last season, which meant Sargent wasn’t just looking to fill the roster back up, but to replace the experience that was lost and add any upgrades he could.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
In Alamutu, the Raiders got a 6-foot-4 guard who played in 92 games in his career, and had 21 starts, 19 of them last season.
Sargent hopes he can be one of, if not the, team leader the Raiders so desperately need. He said Alamutu has been through the rigors of four college seasons, faced many of the game’s ups and downs – he was redshirted his freshman year – and can be an extension of him on the court.
“He brings an awful lot to us,” Sargent said. “First off, he came from a great program in Vermont. He’s an older guy who’s been part of a winning tradition. He can be pivotal in our leadership, both on the court and in the locker room.”
The 22-year-old Alamutu thinks he is ready for that responsibility.
“I know if you look at my numbers, at my stats, it might be hard to imagine I’d be at a place like this,” Alamutu – who averaged 5.6 ppg last season – said quite candidly after a workout the other day at the Raiders practice gym in the Pavilion.
“I wasn’t real highly recruited like some guys in the portal. But I believe numbers don’t define who you are. There’s more to it than that.
“I was looking for coaches who had my back; coaches who saw what I could be and would help me maximize that. And I think these coaches will.”
Alamutu said he especially hit it off with Sargent. They are both men of faith – something they bonded on – and they both want to make their mark this season.
Sargent wants to improve on last season’s disappointing 15-18 record and Alamutu wants to show he’s more than a reserve player, albeit one on a good team that went 100-36 in the four seasons he was with the Catamounts.
And if you look closely at his career, you see signs that can happen.
Last season against Maine, he had a whopping 21 rebounds – as a guard!
He had 16 points against Albany and 23 the season before against New Hampshire.
“If you look at his last 10 games last year, he was averaging close to a double-double – 10 points, nine rebounds and three assists a game,” Sargent said.
From their speed dating hookup, Sargent sees the possibility for a Raider romance with Alamutu:
“For sure I think he is a natural born leader.”
‘The rest is history’
Alamutu was born in Lagos, Nigeria and lived there his first eight years.
His father was educated in London and became a lawyer in Nigeria. His mother is now an IT professional.
The family moved to Canada some 14 years ago.
“At the time there was an immigration drive to Canada,” Omayeli said by phone Monday evening. “A family friend was going there and asked us about it. Now she lives 10 minutes down the road from us.”
The family settled in Ajax, just east of Toronto, on Lake Ontario. Along with Sam, the family has two daughters, Sarah, who once played soccer and is now into the arts, and Hannah, who like her dad, just began playing rugby.
Although now living on the other side of the world – some 6,628 miles from Lagos – Omayeli said she and her husband saw to it that the three children stayed connected to their heritage.
While the children don’t speak the native languages their parents grew up on – Adebayo spoke Yoruba and she spoke Itsekiri – Omayeli said “they do have an ear for it.”
And Sam especially likes the Nigerian food.
“I was just home last weekend, and my mom made me some of my favorite food with rice,” Sam said.
“There’s ayamase; it’s a special sauce with peppers and onions and assorted meats (beef, tripe, goat) that is very spicy,” Omayeli said. “He loves that.”
It wasn’t until he got to Canada that Sam developed a love of basketball.
“I didn’t get into it until I started playing at recess,” he said. “I was 10 and my friends told me I should try out for the team. I did and the rest is history.”
He played three prep seasons at Rothesay Netherwood School in New Brunswick, but by then COVID had altered the recruiting landscape.
“Coaches couldn’t come to see him play, so everything was by Zoom,” his mom said.
He said he got two Division I offers – from Long Beach State and Vermont – and chose the latter because of its hoops’ success.
“Vermont was a great place for me,” he said. “I grew up so much there.”
His mom agreed: “From beginning to end, Vermont was a good place for him. He grew as a young man and the university itself gave him a very high-class education. The community was very supportive of him.
“All in all, it was a very good place for him.”
After four years though, Sam said he was ready to try something new:
“I felt like everything I had to get at Vermont was over. My time there was done.”
Experience and grit
After he entered the portal, he had an unsettling week.
“I was a little worried. I know when you go into the portal, there are two sides to the coin. You go in and things are great, or you go and nothing happens. I prayed about it and then I got some opportunities.”
He admitted though, when he heard from Wright State he was stumped:
“I’ll be honest, when they first called me I’d never heard of Wright State before. I had no idea what state it was in.
“I Googled it and saw it was in the Horizon League, and I knew that was a pretty solid league.”
He knew a little about southwest Ohio. The Catamounts played Miami the past two seasons, losing by a point two years ago in Oxford and then topping the RedHawks, 75-57, last season in Burlington, Vt.
The more he found out about Wright State, both the school and its hoops program, the more impressed he became.
He took two recruiting trips, first to Iona and then a week later to WSU.
Once here, he said he felt a kinship with the coaches, liked the players he met and was surprised by the facilities.
“To be truthful, I was a little mesmerized,” he admitted. “The facilities were great, but I had to calm myself down.
“What was more important were the guys who were here and what they stood for and the culture that was developing.
“And I think I can give this team some leadership, some spiritual maturity. I bring experience and grit, and I believe in hard work.
“One thing I picked up from Vermont, I know what it takes to win. And I think I can bring that here.”
And that brings us to his other name:
Samuel.
In the Bible, he is known as a prophet.
Clint Sargent hopes he lives up to that name, too.
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