Yale junior forward Miye Oni is one of Ivy League basketball’s most electrifying talents, a NBA-caliber standout and Ivy Player of the Year candidate who ranks in the league’s top 10 in scoring, assists, three-point percentage, three-point field goals, blocks, free-throw percentage, rebounding, assist-to-turnover ratio and minutes played. His father Oludotun resides in California and attends many Yale games.
Ivy Hoops Online: Has Miye always been such a young age very interested in basketball?
Oludotun Oni: Yes, as early as two years old. He loved to shoot the ball and he always wanted to wear his Kobe jerseys. We bought him a toy hoop and he would shoot the ball all day long. He never got tired of it; he would cry when it was time to wrap it up. I remember him asking me to lift him up so he could “dunk.” He was so excited one day when Derek Fisher, then with the LA Lakers, gave him a “high-five” during an event at the Valencia mall in California. When he was five years old, he and his older sister (Toni) played in the YMCA league, then later in the church league, and the Los Angeles Rec./Park league. We also took both of them to the Michael Jordan Flight School camp at UC Santa Barbara for a couple of years.