Zena Edosomwan

Zena Edosomwan (born December 6, 1993) is an American former college basketball player for Harvard Crimson. He earned second-team all-conference honors in the Ivy League in 2016. He is the founder and CEO of the Unfiltered Network, which profiles college students of various backgrounds.

Zena Edosomwan
Edosomwan in March 2013
No. 4 – Gigantes de Jalisco
PositionPower forward
LeagueCIBACOPA
Personal information
Born (1993-12-06) December 6, 1993
Los Angeles, California
NationalityAmerican
Listed height6 ft 9 in (2.06 m)
Listed weight245 lb (111 kg)
Career information
High school
CollegeHarvard (2013–2017)
NBA draft2017 / Undrafted
Career history
2020–Gigantes de Jalisco
Career highlights and awards

Early life

Edosomwan is from Los Angeles, California, where he started playing basketball at the age of seven.[1] His parents—Muyiya Ololade and Kehinde Ololade—are both Nigerian immigrants, and encouraged Edosomwan to begin playing basketball and prepared him to attend Harvard-Westlake preparatory school in Los Angeles, where he was coached by Greg Hilliard. Edosomwon won a California state title with the school as a senior.[2]

Edosomwan received offers to play basketball from 39 NCAA Division I programs, including Texas and UCLA, but he turned them all down, determined to be accepted by Harvard.[2][3] He stated his favorite memories of recruiting came when he met academic figures, not sports facilities. As his original SAT scores fell just short of being high enough to earn admission, Edosomwan completed a fifth-year of high school at Northfield Mount Hermon in order to earn admission to the Harvard class of 2017.[2]

College basketball career

Edosomwan was the highest profile high school basketball player to choose to continue his basketball career at Harvard University, and its first top-100 recruit.[2] An East Asian Studies major, the 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m) forward played in 107 career games for the Crimson, starting 49 of them.[4] As a freshman, Edosamwan averaged 2.9 points per game, improving his scoring somewhat to 4.0 points per game as a sophomore.[5] In addition to basketball, Edosomwan learned the Chinese language and participated in a student-to-student connection in China after his sophomore year, crediting his interest in the culture to having Chinese friends.[6]

Edosomwan had a strong start to his junior season, contributing 13 points and 16 rebounds against Providence, 18 points and 15 rebounds against UMass, and 20 points and 9 rebounds versus Boston College.[5] His best game, however, came against Oklahoma where he had 25 points and 16 rebounds in the final of the Diamond Head Classic. He averaged 13.1 points and 9.9 rebounds per game on a team, depleted by injuries, which finished with Harvard's first losing record since 2008.[1] Edosomwon was named to the Second-team All-Ivy League as a junior.[7] He was named to the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar preseason watchlist in for 2016–2017. As a senior, he averaged 7.0 points and a team-high 6.3 rebounds per game.[4]

Professional basketball career

In 2020, Edosomwan signed with Mexican team Gigantes de Jalisco of the Circuito de Baloncesto de la Costa del Pacífico (CIBACOPA), which the Guadalajara-based club announced via their Twitter account in March.[8] He made his debut on March 13 as a member of the starting lineup in the home opener against Venados de Mazatlán.[9] He played in only one more game, also against Mazatlán, before the season was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unfiltered Network

Edosomwan became the CEO of the Unfiltered Network, a media company that he created which profiles college students—including many athletes—of different backgrounds, races, religions and ethnicities.[10][11][12] He started the company after Harvard's basketball season ended in his senior year in 2017. As of 2017, the network had spread to over 50 college campuses.[10]

gollark: Someone probably figured that the USB 3 components wouldn't cost too much more but would make people more likely to buy it.
gollark: Technical decisions are not always made based on technical merit.
gollark: I've designed this very reasonable login page for a thing.
gollark: Marketing!
gollark: There are some fast USB sticks, but they cost more. Also, I don't know which ones.

References
  1. ""Big Z"". Harvard Magazine. February 22, 2017. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  2. Winn, Luke (July 3, 2012). "Zena Edosomwan bypasses top teams for chance to play at Harvard". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  3. O'Brien, Luke (March 3, 2012). "Is Harvard Now Behaving Like Any Other College Basketball Juggernaut?". Deadspin.
  4. "Zena Edosomwan". Harvard Crimson. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
  5. McCluskey, Jack (December 9, 2015). "How Harvard's Top Recruit Is Finally Turning Potential into Points". Vice. Retrieved August 31, 2018.
  6. Jones, Gordie. "Harvard's Zena Edosomwan will not read this, but he's come a long way to lead". American Sports Net. Retrieved August 31, 2018.
  7. "Men's Basketball All-Ivy, Postseason Awards Announced" (Press release). Ivy League. March 9, 2016. Archived from the original on March 11, 2016. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  8. @gigantesjalisco (March 3, 2020). "El californiano Zena Edosomwan fue incorporado a los entrenamientos de Gigantes en el codejalisco previo al CIBACOPAdp 2020. Es de ascendencia nigeriana y graduado de la Universidad de Harvard (2.06 metros y 111 kg). ¡Bienvenido Gigante!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  9. "Con gigantesca voltereta, Jalisco vence a Venados" (in Spanish). cibacopa.org. March 13, 2020. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
  10. Rome, Steven (November 9, 2017). "Yale, Harvard athletes spearhead social media movement". Yale Daily News.
  11. "WHRB Sports Special Feature the Unfiltered Network: A conversation with Harvard basketball alumnus Zena Edosomwan founder and CEO of the Unfiltered Network". WHRB. October 4, 2017.
  12. "Home". Unfiltered. Retrieved August 30, 2018.
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