Road to Duke
His full name is Jesusemilore Talodabijesu Ojeleye. His mother Joy created it, beginning with the name Jesus, as she did for all three of her children. His parents, Ernest and Joy, emigrated from Nigeria to Ottawa, Kansas — a small town of 12,000 people about 45 minutes south of Kansas City. Ernest is a doctor. Joy poured her faith into her children’s names and their upbringing. Semi and his older brother Victor grew up in a household where education, faith, and discipline were non-negotiable.
At Ottawa High School, Ojeleye was a force unlike anything small-town Kansas had ever produced. He set state records for career points (2,763) and single-season points (952). By his senior year, he was a five-star recruit ranked 26th nationally and #8 among small forwards. In 2013, Parade Magazine named him the National High School Player of the Year — the most prestigious individual award in prep basketball. He was a McDonald’s All-American and the most decorated player in Kansas high school history.
He chose Duke. Of course he chose Duke. When you’re the Parade National Player of the Year and Coach K comes calling, you go to Durham. The 2013-14 Blue Devils were loaded with talent — Jabari Parker, Rodney Hood, Rasheed Sulaimon, Quinn Cook, and Amile Jefferson were all on the roster. Seven players from that team would eventually reach the NBA. It was the kind of class where even elite talent could get buried.
At Duke
Ojeleye’s Duke career is the most painful in the Brotherhood. The Parade National Player of the Year played 5.0 minutes per game as a freshman, averaging 1.6 points. He appeared in 19 games and never started. On a roster with Jabari Parker and Rodney Hood, there simply weren’t enough minutes to go around.
His sophomore year started the same way. After appearing in just six games and barely seeing the court, Ojeleye made the agonizing decision to transfer in the middle of the 2014-15 season. The team he left would go on to win the national championship, led by Tyus Jones, Justise Winslow, and Jahlil Okafor. Semi Ojeleye watched from the outside as his former teammates cut down the nets.
The departure was not clean. His mother Joy later described a meeting with Krzyzewski where K initially promised playing time would come, texting her that Semi was “going to break out.” When a second meeting with the coaching staff turned heated, Joy was brought to tears. His father Ernest said an assistant coach called to disparage Semi’s work ethic — an accusation the family found deeply insulting given the state records and national awards their son had accumulated.
Duke issued a statement acknowledging that “transfer situations are sometimes emotional” and wished Ojeleye well. Semi himself was characteristically gracious: “I wasn’t prepared, mentally or physically. I don’t think I ever performed at my best. Being a young kid, I could never get over that hump.” And then, the line that defined his character: “If I could do it over again, I’d still go there. It was a great opportunity playing for Coach K. It definitely made me the person I am today.”
His mother saw it differently: “He would have toiled away in obscurity. He would have slaved away and the dream would have been completely dead.”
The SMU Renaissance
Ojeleye’s former AAU coach, Rodney Perry, connected him with Larry Brown at SMU. Brown walked into the Ojeleye home with his entire staff and told Semi he knew what he had without seeing another minute of game film. The fit was immediate.
But Ojeleye made a remarkable decision: instead of playing immediately after sitting out the NCAA-mandated transfer year, he redshirted the entire 2015-16 season as well. That meant he hadn’t played a meaningful game in nearly three years. He used the time to transform his body into what Draft Express would later call “a heavy, jacked frame” and to hone his three-point shot from good to lethal. He shot 42.4% from three at SMU.
When he finally took the court for the 2016-17 season, Semi Ojeleye was a different player. He averaged 19.0 points and 6.9 rebounds, shot 48.7% from the field and 42.4% from three, and was named AAC Player of the Year, AAC Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and AAC Tournament MVP. He led SMU to a 30-5 record and both the regular-season and tournament championships. His coach Tim Jankovich marveled at the combination: “To have his body, and the kind of shooting ability he has … it certainly doesn’t match that body type. You don’t find many guys with that soft a touch and that strong a body.”
After Duke
The Boston Celtics selected Ojeleye 37th overall in the 2017 NBA Draft. Brad Stevens saw the defensive versatility immediately: “We knew he could be a versatile defender.” In his rookie season, Ojeleye carved out a playoff role that nobody expected. When injuries depleted the Celtics’ frontcourt, Stevens turned to the rookie and asked him to guard Giannis Antetokounmpo in a first-round series against Milwaukee. In Game 7, Ojeleye formed a wall between the Greek Freak and the basket. Antetokounmpo shot 7-for-17 under his pressure. Boston won the series.
Ojeleye spent four seasons with the Celtics, appearing in 198 regular-season games and 23 playoff games. He was never a star — his NBA averages of 3.4 points and 2.2 rebounds reflected a role player’s life — but he earned $7.8 million and proved he belonged on an NBA roster. He had brief stops with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers before moving to Europe in 2022.
At Virtus Bologna in Italy, Ojeleye found a second basketball life. He was named MVP of the Italian Supercup in 2022, helping Virtus win the championship. He competed in the EuroLeague — the highest level of European club basketball. After a season in Bologna, he moved to Valencia in Spain, and then to Crvena zvezda in Serbia, where he continues to play in the ABA League.
Where Is He Now
Semi Ojeleye is 31 years old and still playing professional basketball, now with Crvena zvezda in Belgrade, Serbia. He has earned over $8 million combined in NBA and European salaries. His nicknames tell you everything about the body he built: “Muscles Jesus,” “The Ox,” “Thor,” “The Man Made of Granite.”
His Brotherhood story is the road not taken — or rather, the road that forked. He was the Parade National Player of the Year who played 23 games at Duke and never started. He transferred, sat out for essentially three years, reinvented himself at SMU, got drafted, guarded Giannis in the NBA playoffs, won a championship in Italy, and is still playing professionally a decade after leaving Durham.
The fact that he remained gracious about Duke — “If I could do it over again, I’d still go there” — while his parents openly described the pain of the experience speaks to the complexity of the Brotherhood. Not every Duke story is a triumph in Durham. Some players need to leave to find themselves. Semi Ojeleye is proof that the name on the front of the jersey isn’t always where the story happens — but it’s always where the story starts.