A Princeton Passer’s Skills Recall a Departed Coach’s Legacy

“He’s not a prototypical Princeton center,” Henderson said on Wednesday while preparing to face Arizona on Thursday afternoon in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament. The coach was referring to Evbuomwan’s court vision and his agility and dexterity, which are unusual for a 6-foot-8 big man, but he could have been talking about more.

A senior, Evbuomwan is from Newcastle, England, and didn’t begin playing basketball seriously, he said, until he was 16. He wears pink shoes and the No. 20 in honor of his mother, Michelle, who died of breast cancer in 2012 and whose birthday was March 20.

His parents met in Nigeria, where Michelle was a pilot and his father, Isaac, was a doctor. Though Tosan is unclear on many of the details, because it happened before his birth, his mother was once awarded the honor of flying Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, around the country during a tour of Nigeria.

“She didn’t tell me a whole lot — she didn’t like to talk about herself,” Evbuomwan said after Princeton’s practice on Wednesday. “She met my dad when she was flying for the Red Cross.”

His father watched Evbuomwan earn the Ivy League Tournament’s Most Oustanding Player Award last week while averaging 21 points per game and will be in the Golden 1 Center stands for his N.C.A.A. tournament debut. So, too, will be 30 or 40 Princeton basketball alumni carrying with them the spirit of Carril.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/sports/ncaabasketball/princeton-ncaa-tournament.html