DENVER - Former Sun Belt Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Year Yemi Nicholson stopped by the Ritchie Center this week.
Nicholson has been playing overseas since he graduated from the University of Denver with a degree in communications and minor in business administration in March 2006.
Despite some challenges with language and culture shock, Nicholson said he has really enjoyed playing in places like Spain, Germany and Belgium, and he anticipates playing for several more years.
Nicholson grew up in the Denver area and returns each summer, even though his family has moved to Pittsburgh because, as he said, Denver will always be home.
Mitch Hyder, the Voice of the Pioneers, interviewed Nicholson while he was here. You can see that interview in the media player below.
Travel Update: The basketball coaches all seem to be recovered from a jam-packed recruiting season. DU's coaches spent most of July traveling to places like Las Vegas, Orlando, Dallas and seemingly everywhere in between.
The team should have just one scholarship, which means they can really focus on getting the best player available. Of course, the one scholarship that's opening up currently belongs to a guy named Nate Rohnert, who is set to graduate next spring. Hopefully whoever they sign will work as hard as Rohnert has in his first three years at DU.
The coaches are all back in the offices now and preparing for the season. Practices can't begin until Oct. 16, but the players will have a couple of hours of workouts each week once the school year starts in mid-September.
Dance the Night Away: DU's basketball players all took classes this summer, which is pretty common. What is not common is one of the classes.
Nate Rohnert and Andrew Hooper took "Dance in India," a core class that required them to perform a dance as part of the final.
Word from the players was that it was a challenging course that involved, in part, learning the names of several dance moves and how to do them.
According to the class description, "As a discipline in which the body is trained to become "naturalized" in very specific ways, dance tells us much about the culture in which it is a part... This course explores the tension between change (innovation) and continuity (tradition) in four different forms of dance from the Indian subcontinent: Bharata Natyam, a classical dance form from South India; Kathak, a classical dance form from North India; Bhangra, a folk dance form from Northwest India; and the mass-mediated, syncretic form of dance predominant in the Bollywood film industry."
Unfortunately, we do not have video footage of Rohnert at 6-foot-5 or Hooper at 6-foot-9 showing off their inner Bollywood. However, you never know where players might pick up new moves that will help them on the hardwood.
Star Search: Former DU basketball player David Atkins returns to town this weekend. He's better known these days as Sinbad, the comedian who made his start on Star Search (a.k.a. the original "America's Got Talent"), a number of HBO comedy specials and the Cosby Show spin-off, A Different World.
Atkins played four years for the Pioneers from 1974-78, averaging 4.2 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.
Sinbad is performing at Comedy Works South from Aug. 14-16.
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