‘It’s like a marathon’: Udeze’s perseverance pays off big for Wichita State basketball
Morris Udeze was gone.
After playing two seasons at Wichita State — the first marred by a season-ending shoulder injury, the second limited to less than 11 minutes per game — the 6-foot-8 center was convinced he had played his last game for the Shockers and submitted his name into the NCAA transfer portal last March.
For the next month, Udeze was introspective. He explored his options and weighed the pros and cons of every potential situation with his inner circle. But the one conversation that kept resurfacing in Udeze’s head was a talk that he had with his father, Felix Ihegworo, who immigrated to the United States from Nigeria to raise a family of six.
“You can’t rush it. It’s like a marathon,” Udeze said. “You’ve got to keep pushing every day and one day it’s going to break through for you. My dad kept telling me to just keep pushing and stay on it every day. Give it your all.”
It ultimately convinced Udeze to continue running his race at Wichita State. The perseverance has paid off.
Udeze was just chosen American Athletic Conference Player of the Week after scoring a combined 38 points in wins over Cincinnati and Tulsa, including a career-high 20 points and season-best eight rebounds in the Tulsa win.
After playing a minor role (4.3 points in 10.5 minutes) on last season’s team, Udeze has risen to the challenge of playing a key role as WSU’s starting center by averaging 9.4 points, second-best on the team, and playing 19.1 minutes for a Shockers squad that has won seven of its last eight games and become one of the nation’s top surprises.
“I told him all summer long, ‘Morris, just keep working and get yourself in tip-top shape,’” WSU interim coach Isaac Brown said. “He played behind Jaime (Echenique) last season, but he has been our starting center before and he trained to be that guy again. I’m so excited he’s had back-to-back good games like that.”
Scoring outbursts from Udeze like the last two games have been a long time coming in the opinion of Brannon Burnett, the trainer who has worked with Udeze in his hometown of Houston since 2016.
A typical day for Udeze when he’s back home in the summer involves sprints in the Houston heat on a track followed by running hills. Up next, he’ll hop on the VertiMax, which aims to improve vertical jumping and first-step quickness. Then it’s on to strength and conditioning, where he’ll work on flexibility and strengthening his core and upper body. He also works on his defensive slides in a pool.
And that’s just what he does without a basketball. When he steps on the court, Burnett forces Udeze to shoot and play through fatigue. Every drill is timed. He has to dunk medicine balls and finish post moves wearing a weighted vest while being pushed and bumped by Burnett. From 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., Udeze is training.
“Our training is like none other in the United States. It’s a lot of work, man,” Burnett said after rattling it all off. “But Morris had a great offseason. I knew a breakout was coming.”
After losing out on his entire offseason between his freshman and sophomore season due to shoulder surgery, Udeze was motivated to make his first real offseason of work count. He was able to get a jump start on his training with Burnett since the basketball season and school year was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic.
After nearly five months working with Burnett, Udeze said he arrived to WSU this season in the best shape of his life. He now weighs close to 235 pounds, about 20 pounds lighter than when he arrived in college, but he says he’s stronger now.
“I cranked it up to a whole new level because quarantine gave me extra time to get way better,” Udeze said. “I took it as I’m going to catch up to everybody who was better than me at the time or thinks they’re better than me. I’m going to catch up during this offseason. Quarantine gave me a lot of time to patch up my game.”
It’s not a coincidence that Udeze has 12 dunks through 11 games this season after dunking just 10 times in 44 games the last two seasons.
Udeze is bouncier than ever, proven by his explosive play of late. Against Cincinnati, Udeze plowed a defender over with a screen, rolled to the basket, caught the pass, exploded toward the basket and pulled himself up on the rim with a thunderous dunk.
Against Tulsa, Udeze again looked unstoppable on a roll to the basket when he caught the dump-off pass from Alterique Gilbert and rose above the defense for the slam. He’s beginning to look more like NBA star DeAndre Jordan than the under-sized, ground-bound center of his first two years in Wichita.
“I was so excited for him to see him take the rim off,” Gilbert said. “He’s done that so many times this year already. We want to make sure that’s a game-to-game thing and keep it going.”
While Udeze has made incremental strides to different parts of his game, by far his biggest leap this off-season was with his foul shooting.
When Udeze was fouled and sent to the line his first two seasons, WSU was lucky to come away with one point. He shot 38.5% on free throws as a freshman, then 48.2% from the line as a sophomore. He enlisted the help of Adrian Sims, a Wichita trainer who runs Shoot It Better Basketball Academy.
“When I first started working with him, he shot the ball with two hands and he didn’t really know he was doing it,” Sims said. “He was a thumb-flicker and a palm-roller because he has massive hands. All it took was a quick, little tweak.”
After recording Udeze’s shot and showing him what he was doing, Sims was able to quickly retool Udeze’s shooting motion. He credited Udeze for being a willing learner and putting time in the gym working on the repetition from the foul line to build confidence that would transfer over during games.
Now no one sighs when Udeze is fouled. After making less than 50% of his free throws in his first two years, Udeze has made 84% (21 of 25) of his free throws this season against Division I competition. His trainer and coach both say it’s the most dramatic shooting turnarounds they’ve seen.
“It’s 100% a proud father moment now when I see him making them,” Sims said. “But honestly, Mo deserves a lot of the credit. He put in the work.”
“The kids has worked at it,” Brown said. “He shows up before practice, after practice and he’s always getting up free throws.”
There is still plenty for Udeze to improve upon.
After being a plus rebounder his first two seasons, Udeze’s rebounding production at both ends has plummeted. He’s only grabbing 11.7% of available defensive rebounds, while most centers are in the high teens, if not at the 20% threshold. Just as troubling, Udeze’s per-minute offensive rebounding numbers are way down, meaning he’s not getting as many easy put-backs this season.
Another problem has been turnovers. Thrust into a higher-usage role, Udeze is giving the ball up (24.7% turnover rate) on about a quarter of his possessions. And while he’s improved his defense, fouling (7.8 fouls per 40 minutes) is still an issue with him.
But for the first time in his career, Udeze is getting to work through his problems on the court. His trainer said after working with him for five years, Udeze’s resolve is his best attribute.
“Morris is so mentally strong, he’s capable of pushing through anything,” Burnett said. “He’s going to have his ups and downs like everybody else, but he’s not going to beat himself up. Even when things go wrong, he’s able to put a smile on his face and put his hard hat on and go to work. Not a lot of kids can do that when things don’t go their way. But Morris is built different.”
WSU is already off to a strong start in AAC play, sitting in second place with a 4-1 record entering Thursday’s road trip to Memphis, mostly on the strength of the team’s guards.
If Udeze can be a consistent scoring threat down low for the Shockers, then they could level up even further. After waiting his turn the last two seasons, Udeze believes he is ready for the challenge.
“I just keep saying, ‘Keep going and one day you’ll break through,’” Udeze said. “I pray over it every day. I’ve just got to stay locked in and one day it will be your day. Just keep going and don’t quit.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
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