Fareed Shittu didn't start playing basketball until his Grade 11 year at Harry Ainlay High School in Edmonton.
But if you watch how effortlessly he dunks the ball or how quickly his body soars into position to finish off an alley-oop play you'd swear he was born with springs on his feet and a nose for the net.
One of the most exciting rookie recruits in the eight-year Canada West history of the UNBC Timberwolves men's basketball program, the six-foot-six, 185-pound Shittu has rapidly endeared himself to T-wolves' fans with his ability to defy gravity to score points and grab rebounds, and the best is likely yet to come in his burgeoning basketball career as he finds his way around the U Sports playground.
"Honestly, I just like to have fun, whenever I'm out there, even if we're winning or losing, I like to go out there with the mindset that I want to get better and try to have fun," said Shittu, who turned 18 on Oct. 20.
Just starting to establish his reputation as a gamebreaking forward, Shittu has forced head coach Todd Jordan's hand and he's played him an average of 25 minutes per game - much more than Jordan thought he would get his first season.
"I was not expecting to come here and play this many minutes but I'm also very happy," said Shittu. "It's a pretty big jump (from high school) but I played for two or three months a club team in Edmonton called Good Hoops and played in one or two lower college-league tournaments, so I got a university taste from there. I'm not the biggest guy out there so I do have to spend a little more energy trying to fight around the bigger guys on the court and that was a big adjustment.
"I'm a pretty quick learner and just over this half-season I've been able to pick up on ball movement and where the ball bounces off the rim, really stretching for rebounds and just getting a better feel for the game."
Ten games into a 20-game schedule, Shittu already has 68 points and he's rapidly closing in on the T-wolves' record for points in a season by a rookie (90) set by teammate Tyrell Laing in 2017. Also within Shittu's long reach is the team record for rebounds in a season by a rookie, held by Navjot Bains. Bains collected 94 in the 2012-13 season and Shittu has 78 heading into a weekend set at the Northern Sport Centre Friday and Saturday against the Fraser Valley Cascades.
"He's been great, he's bringing lots of energy to the games and he's athletically gifted so he can rebound the ball very well for us," Jordan. "He doesn't create a lot of scoring for himself but when guys help off of him, he's able to finish above the rim. He's definitely an exciting guy to watch.
"He has a high D-1/NBA vertical jump, it's up around 40 inches. Because he hasn't played a lot of basketball he's still learning the basics of the game at this level, some technical stuff as far as defensive schemes and offensive schemes of how to execute pick-and-rolls. He's very athletic but the physicality is much different for him, going against men now. He's still a work in progress getting stronger in the weight room."
Shittu was born and raised in Edmonton and his parents are from Nigeria. A natural athlete, just like his parents, he played club soccer for eight years and was also into snowboarding and BMX racing before he joined his first basketball team when he was 16.
Shittu leads the T-wolves with 18 blocks, having already smashed the rookie record for the team.
The T-wolves are coming off pair of losses to the Calgary Dinos, who haven't lost a regular-season game in two seasons.
"I definitely feel we have a good chance this weekend if we can keep up that level that we played against Calgary," said Shittu. "They forced us to be a little but more competitive and have a bit more drive and if we can keep that same energy and carry it on to the games against the Cascades we have a good chance.
"In the second game against Calgary (a 75-57 loss), I think we all had a little more trust in one another so we weren't afraid to commit to stopping somebody driving or committing to a double-team because we knew somebody had our back when we needed help in the rotation."
UNBC sits 11th in the standings, sharing the same 4-6 record as Fraser Valley and Winnipeg, who both sport better Rating Percentage Index rankings than UNBC, which is based on who they've played this season. Each team has 10 games left to lock up playoff positions. All of UNBC's opponents the rest of the season have losing records and three of the T-wolves' five remaining weekends are against the league's bottom tier.
"I thought we won the games we needed to win in the first half of the season," said Jordan. "The heavier load of our season was in the first half and to get through that and be sitting in a playoff spot with a young team is great. But there are a whole bunch of teams on the verge of being in or out and we' re one of those teams, so we have to perform in the second half to get, it's not an easy road. We just have to push the next 10 games."
The Cascades will be paying close attention to Vova Pluzhnikov. The fourth-year guard from the Ukraine is second in T-wolves' scoring, averaging 17.5 points (17th in Canada West), ranks fourth in the league with 49 assists and his league-leading free-throw shooting (43-for-46) is nearly perfect. Like Shittu, the six-foot Pluzhnikov can jump like a grasshopper, averaging 5.8 rebounds per game, second among T-wolves.
Fraser Valley poses a threat at forward with six-foot-six Sukhjot Bains, who returned to Fraser Valley last year after a season playing for the NCAA Division 1 University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Phoenix. They also have sweet-shooting guard Parm Bains (no relation).
Sukhjot is a top-10 rebounder, averaging 8.7 per game, and his 30 buckets from three-point range ranks fifth in the league. Parm, the Cascades' leading scorer (18.7 points per game) is a deadly three-point shooter and his 83.3 per cent average (41-for-96) is the best in Canada West.
"They're a good defensive team and they play a solid halfcourt man-to-man defence and clog the lane to make it hard to score, and at the other end of the floor they play loose and free and shoot lots of threes and run a lot of ball screens," said Jordan. "The challenge will be keeping in front of them off the dribble and trying to keep their guards out of the lane to get three-point shots. If we luck into our defensive gameplan we have a good opportunity to win one or two games this weekend. It's always pretty competitive battles with us and them."
The Cascades eliminated the T-wolves in the first round of playoffs last season so there will no shortage of motivation on the UNBC side of the court.
“We talk about last year a lot," said Pluzhnikov. "We are definitely looking forward to getting revenge for last year’s loss. We circled this weekend on our calendars when the schedule was released.
The teams meet Friday at 8 p.m., following the women's game which starts at 6, and the rematch is scheduled for Saturday at 7 p.m. Spencer Ledoux (concussion) will be unavailable to the T-wolves this weekend.
