Naya Ojukwu - Forward

2,210 Views | 43 Replies | Last: 17 hrs ago by annarborbear
WC Bear
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Looks like Charmin and staff, have landed a third transfer.

brevity
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Confirmed on Naya Ojukwu's Instagram.

https://instagr.am/p/DJPkvcty9Tb
SFCALBear72
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Naya already has CalWBB listed on her Instagram page and she is being followed by Lulu, Gisella, Jayda Noble and our other new Bear, Mjracle.

Welcome to Bear Territory, Naya!!

In high school, Naya was the 2020-21 Idaho Gatorade Player of the Year.
HairOfTheBear
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SFCALBear72 said:

Naya already has CalWBB listed on her Instagram page and she is being followed by Lulu, Gisella, Jayda Noble and our other new Bear, Mjracle.

Welcome to Bear Territory, Naya!!

In high school, Naya was the 2020-21 Idaho Gatorade Player of the Year.
If I'm not mistaken, they are the Morgan State Bears, so she gets a nice upgrade from Bear to Golden Bear!

Welcome Naya
SFCALBear72
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HairOfTheBear said:

SFCALBear72 said:

Naya already has CalWBB listed on her Instagram page and she is being followed by Lulu, Gisella, Jayda Noble and our other new Bear, Mjracle.

Welcome to Bear Territory, Naya!!

In high school, Naya was the 2020-21 Idaho Gatorade Player of the Year.
If I'm not mistaken, they are the Morgan State Bears, so she gets a nice upgrade from Bear to Golden Bear!

Welcome Naya
Looks like they call them the Morgan State Lady Bears but yes, she's now in West Coast Bear Territory!

By my count, this puts our roster at 13 players including PWO, Sofia Bowes. What do you think? Add one more from the transfer portal? Two?
BearBint
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I like her Instagram post: "Divine design babyyy!!"

Welcome to Cal, Naya!
"Don't get distracted, myself. Don't get distracted." Self-talk from a young relative
mbBear
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SFCALBear72 said:

HairOfTheBear said:

SFCALBear72 said:

Naya already has CalWBB listed on her Instagram page and she is being followed by Lulu, Gisella, Jayda Noble and our other new Bear, Mjracle.

Welcome to Bear Territory, Naya!!

In high school, Naya was the 2020-21 Idaho Gatorade Player of the Year.
If I'm not mistaken, they are the Morgan State Bears, so she gets a nice upgrade from Bear to Golden Bear!

Welcome Naya
Looks like they call them the Morgan State Lady Bears but yes, she's now in West Coast Bear Territory!

By my count, this puts our roster at 13 players including PWO, Sofia Bowes. What do you think? Add one more from the transfer portal? Two?


Unless they recruit over some players already
in the fold, they don't have that many minutes to sell to a recruit? A player who can handle both wing, and be respectable at PF?
stu
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Interesting bio from Morgan State:
https://morganstatebears.com/sports/womens-basketball/roster/naya-ojukwu/9920

TL;DR
2020-21 Idaho HS player of the year, MVP in State Tournament
2022-23 freshie at Utah, played in just 4 games
2023-24 hardship waiver, true freshie at Gonzaga, played in 9 games
2024-25 redshirt freshie at Morgan State, played in 15 games, started 13

Listed at 6' 0" by Gonzaga and Utah.

Also plays volleyball.

Tore her ACL in 2022.
stu
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BearBint said:

I like her Instagram post: Divine design babyyy!!

Welcome to Cal, Naya!
And blue will become her!
RedlessWardrobe
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Any highlights available?
ncbears
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Some great MEAC stats
brevity
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RedlessWardrobe said:

Any highlights available?

Yes, here's a highlight reel on YouTube.

annarborbear
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Good-looking video, But there is one stat that she will have to clean up. Averaged 3.8 TO's per game, including 4 or more TO's in 10 of the 15 games in which she played. I hope that Charmin will not just say that that's part of her game.
stu
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Looks like she can run the floor, take it to the hoop, and use the backboard. Also quick off her feet and can play some D away from the basket.
HoopDreams
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Looks like a good pickup in a needed position

she actually has about 1 season of PT experience in 3 seasons, so I guess she might be coming in as a redshirt junior with 2 years to go, but potentially 3

has a solid mid-range and scores around the paint, plus good timing on her shot blocks

yeah, gotta watch those turnovers

Still think we need some vets on this team
Schroeder71
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Naya plays bigger than her height. She is either 6-0 or 6-1 and averaged 9 rebounds and 17.1 points per game.
*Ojukwu does not make three-point shots*. She scores inside and is excellent at improvisation on her array of shots. Naya has an excellent fade-away jump shot that she banks in. She uses the backboard on bank shots probably better than anyone currently at Cal. Naya is athletic and appears to be a good defender and shot blocker. I don't know why Utah and Gonzaga did not see the potential in this young lady. I'm pleasantly surprised by her skills and look forward to her being a starter for the Bears. Charmin Smith finally has five players capable of starting next season.

I'm most concerned about having enough offense to score seventy points per game. I think that two more transfers need to be pursued that can score from the outside, preferably from three-point land. Did anyone get the transfer from Stanford, yet? She was high scorer in two different games that I watched last season, registering 24 points. She hit approximately 50% on her treys. GO BEARS!
OneKeg
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Seems like Ojukwu has a good chance to be a contributor if she can adjust back to the higher level of play. Perhaps even start at the 4, if the two bigs split time at the 5. Agree that turnovers are a concern, and she did seem to be a better athlete than her competition in several of those highlights, which is a good thing of course, but means it could be a significant adjustment from the MEAC to the ACC.

I hope Coach Smith has the resources to sign a 3-and-D transfer though. Stretch-4 would be great, but need multiple other reliable deep threats besides Twidale. Hopefully Puff Morris and one or more of the other freshmen or returning bench guards can also step up their game, including outside shooting, as Twidale did this past season.
RedlessWardrobe
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Watching the video the immediate thing to see is she is quick and uses her hops on her shots quite frequently. Very impressive. I think we'll see her get lots of minutes. Sure looks like a rotation player to me, even a possible starter.
RedlessWardrobe
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Schroeder71 said:

Naya plays bigger than her height. She is either 6-0 or 6-1 and averaged 9 rebounds and 17.1 points per game.
*Ojukwu does not make three-point shots*. She scores inside and is excellent at improvisation on her array of shots. Naya has an excellent fade-away jump shot that she banks in. She uses the backboard on bank shots probably better than anyone currently at Cal. Naya is athletic and appears to be a good defender and shot blocker. I don't know why Utah and Gonzaga did not see the potential in this young lady. I'm pleasantly surprised by her skills and look forward to her being a starter for the Bears. Charmin Smith finally has five players capable of starting next season.

I'm most concerned about having enough offense to score seventy points per game. I think that two more transfers need to be pursued that can score from the outside, preferably from three-point land. Did anyone get the transfer from Stanford, yet? She was high scorer in two different games that I watched last season, registering 24 points. She hit approximately 50% on her treys. GO BEARS!

Well I would be most concerned about our ability to defend. We have good athletes at center, but as impressive as Naya's offensive skills appear to be good, is she strong enough to defend as a 4. Also the same goes for Puff. We've heard and seen so much regarding her offensive skills, but I don't recall much discussion about her ability to defend. While scoring "seventy" per game is important, it won't mean a thing if we're giving up eighty at the same time.
CalWSportsFan
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Well, this is one game but:

Quote:

In the state championship win over Archbishop Mitty, the three-point shots weren't falling for Puff but she played exceptional defense and still finished with 12 points and seven assists.

This is a actually a great article on Puff.

Quote:

"Puff Morris is one of the most highly decorated and regarded players in California girls basketball history with nine rings to her resume including three state titles, three SoCal regional titles, two section titles and one national championship," said Etiwanda head coach and 2023 Cal-Hi Sports State Coach of the Year Stan Delus. "From the day she stepped on the Etiwanda campus she's been a consummate winner and turned the program into a national power. No player in the state has accomplished as much as she has in four years."

Consummate is really the key word when it comes to Morris. In a day and age when players at all levels take exception with officials calls, argue and show bad body language, in dozens of games where we have seen Puff in action, not once has she complained or engaged an official over a questionable call, and there have been a few bad calls as to be expected over four years.

The bottom line is while her nickname is Puff, Morris is not a lot fluff, glitz and glitter. She's a big-time winner, and an absolute model of the state CIF motto of "Pursuing Victory With Honor."



Here's the link: https://www.calhisports.com/2025/04/10/ms-basketball-2025-power-of-puff/
SFCALBear72
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Schroeder71 said:



I'm most concerned about having enough offense to score seventy points per game. I think that two more transfers need to be pursued that can score from the outside, preferably from three-point land. Did anyone get the transfer from Stanford, yet? She was high scorer in two different games that I watched last season, registering 24 points. She hit approximately 50% on her treys. GO BEARS!


Here's one solution: Make a contribution to the Cal WBB NIL Fund so Charmin can attract those high-profile scorers in the portal.

I think the wild card in all of this talk about next season's roster is Gisella Maul. We really don't know what she's fully capable of contributing to the Bears' scoring efforts. She was hampered by an injury this past season and didn't get much playing time as a freshman at Texas.

Gisella was a scorer in high school. I think this may be a breakout season for her as a starter alongside Lulu.

Likewise, Naya. She gets a fresh start with the Bears and the opportunity to play a full season to show what she can contribute in scoring and why the Bears pursued her in the portal.
ClayK
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Two of my key stats about players:

3 pt. %: Ojukwu was 1 for 10. And for a small power forward, it's pretty important to have an outside threat. It's a different world at Cal's level, with a lot more size in the paint.

A/TO: Ojukwu had nine assists -- yes, nine -- in 477 minutes. That's less than one per 40 minutes, and 0.6 per game. And she had 58 turnovers, for a 9/58 A/TO. Yikes.

So an undersized, athletic inside player who doesn't shoot threes and can't handle.

Now, all that said, she battled an ACL and essentially has had one full season of college play, so improvement should be expected. In fact, three-point shooting might appear, as it's a skill that can be improved on with repetition (though in the highlight reel her footwork wasn't good). Ballhandling, though, is a higher mountain to climb (just ask Marta).

Adding more players doesn't seem to make sense unless a starter can be found. There are too many players and not enough minutes already.
stu
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Yeah, 3.6 turnovers per 30 minutes is terrible. I don't know where they came from, bad passes or bad handles or bad hands or something else. I don't think Charmin will ask her to handle the ball much.

But it looks like she can rebound, defend, and score from short range. If so she'll play. We needed a little more athleticism and it looks that all of our incoming transfers have that.
RedlessWardrobe
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Re: Naya. Yes, the turnovers need to be reduced. Not so concerned about the low assist number. I would guess by nature a 4 would usually be a low assist player, and perhaps her teamates were not good shooters/finishers, which can also bring that number down.
stu
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SFCALBear72 said:

I think the wild card in all of this talk about next season's roster is Gisella Maul. We really don't know what she's fully capable of contributing to the Bears' scoring efforts. She was hampered by an injury this past season and didn't get much playing time as a freshman at Texas.

Gisella was a scorer in high school. I think this may be a breakout season for her as a starter alongside Lulu.
I would love to see that!
mbBear
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SFCALBear72 said:

Schroeder71 said:



I'm most concerned about having enough offense to score seventy points per game. I think that two more transfers need to be pursued that can score from the outside, preferably from three-point land. Did anyone get the transfer from Stanford, yet? She was high scorer in two different games that I watched last season, registering 24 points. She hit approximately 50% on her treys. GO BEARS!


Here's one solution: Make a contribution to the Cal WBB NIL Fund so Charmin can attract those high-profile scorers in the portal.

I think the wild card in all of this talk about next season's roster is Gisella Maul. We really don't know what she's fully capable of contributing to the Bears' scoring efforts. She was hampered by an injury this past season and didn't get much playing time as a freshman at Texas.

Gisella was a scorer in high school. I think this may be a breakout season for her as a starter alongside Lulu.

Likewise, Naya. She gets a fresh start with the Bears and the opportunity to play a full season to show what she can contribute in scoring and why the Bears pursued her in the portal.

Because I trust your opinion (as well as several here): would you bet on Maul being a breakout more than Lola?
I agree on you bringing up the young players...I don't think we know true offensive potential there.
SFCALBear72
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They both exhibited a reluctance to score this past season. Or maybe that was not their role as defined by the coaching staff. Defer to Lulu, Marta, Krimili and Michelle instead.

I'm thinking that will all change this next season. It could be Lola or Gisella. But I'm sticking with the more experienced Gisella.
RedlessWardrobe
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SFCALBear72 said:

They both exhibited a reluctance to score this past season. Or maybe that was not their role as defined by the coaching staff. Defer to Lulu, Marta, Krimili and Michelle instead.

I'm thinking that will all change this next season. It could be Lola or Gisella. But I'm sticking with the more experienced Gisella.
Lola's reluctance to score was involuntary. She is a wing player that needs to seriously improve her outside shot. Until she does that she will provide very few points.
wbbilluminati
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I remember her in coming out of hs having a ucla offer. believe she was a good volleyball players.
annarborbear
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I'm anxious to see how Maul looks this season. Her injury problem is a long-standing one, resulting from an ACL tear at the end of her senior year of high school. She was an outstanding high school player, but clearly has not regained what she had. Maybe one more year will make a difference. Let's really hope for that.
3Cats4CAL
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wbbilluminati said:

I remember her in coming out of hs having a ucla offer. believe she was a good volleyball players.
Maybe she should be asked to join the Bears volleyball team? There have been other players who competed in those 2 sports in the past at Stanford but maybe it would be more difficult now with it being ACC and no longer Pac with all the travelling?
3Cats4CAL
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That was Kristin Folkl sp who played both BB and Volleyball.
wbbilluminati
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Of the three transfers, I think she could be the best
wvitbear
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Stanford had an Asian women from Minnesota who played both sports.
HoopDreams
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I'm also cautiously optimistic about Gisella

I think she will be our Most Improved
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