For new Purdue commitment, effort has stood in for experience
More: Emmanuel Dowuona commits | Analysis ($)
Having played just two seasons of formal basketball now, Emmanuel Dowuona has found an effective workaround for his relative lack of experience.
The new Purdue center commitment has been largely defined by his effort.
"No. 1, it's how he's wired. You're never sure sometimes what you're going to get out of a young man. They might have the athletic ability, but what kind of heart do they play with?" said Jose Amat, Dowuona's coach at Miami's Westwood Christian. "… He's always understood you want to do whatever you can to help the team win. If you've seen him play in AAU, there are games where he might not even touch the ball, but he's content doing his job. If his team is winning and he's helping his team win, that's what he cares about. For him, it's running the floor hard, playing good defense, being unselfish, setting the right screens and doing the little things that sometimes don't come out in a box score."
Effort highlights the 6-foot-10, 230-or-so pound center's natural defensive profile.
While he remains largely unrefined as a player, his size, strength, tenacity, quickness and mobility have made him a natural at the defensive end and a promising rim-protector prospect.
"(Defense) comes from the heart," Dowuona said in July. "It doesn't come from coaches telling you. They can tell you where to be, but you playing and showing the effort comes from you. I would say it comes natural. If you like it, you're going to do it. If you don't like it, you have to go through a lot to learn it and do it, but if you do like it, you just do it naturally. I think I have it and just do it."
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Purdue's signed some outstanding shot-blocking presences under Matt Painter, notably JaJuan Johnson and A.J. Hammons, among others. While those players would be a lofty standard to hold Dowuona to, that element of his game was certainly part of the draw.
As would be rebounding, where effort and strength have made Dowuona particularly effective, also, and a seemingly formidable complement to another excellent high school rebounder in prior Boilermaker recruit Trevion Williams.
In his second year of organized basketball, Dowuona averaged 16 rebounds and five blocks — as well as around 18 points — for Westwood Christian last season, much of it being the product of maximum effort.
"That's my job. Everybody's aim on the court is to win the game. You can't play soft and expect to win the game," Dowuona said. "Sometimes it happens, but it rarely happens. You have to play hard to win the game all the time. That's my mentality every time I step foot on the court.
"Even if I know you and you're friends with me and on the opposite team, I don't know you. I just play as hard as I can to win the game. That's what I have in my head and what I do all the time."
For as impactful as Dowuona stands to prove to be defensively, he admits to be being raw from an offensive perspective, the vast majority of his offensive productivity in high school and AAU coming by virtue of effort and size. Lots of dunks, really.
That being said, he'll put Purdue's reputation for developing big men to the test.
"His strengths are definitely his intangibles and the things he does without the ball in his hands and how he can impact games defensively and through his hard-nosed, physical play," Amat said. "His up-side is, he's just scratching the surface. He's so raw and new to the game still.
"I think when Purdue's coaching staff gets a hold of him and starts working with him and molding him the way they're known for doing with their big men, I think the sky's the limit for him."
That potential, Dowuona will hope, will be realized in full when experience catches up with effort.
"I'll be on a whole other level. I don't stop working," he said. "I strive hard to achieve my aim and my aim is sky high. I really work hard to achieve my aim and I know for sure that in two years I'll be a different person altogether. There will be a big difference from now."
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