(Photo: Seattle PI)

Their paths crossed for the first time during a Rising Stars game in Toronto early in their high school careers.

At a banquet dinner the night before the all-star game, Olu Ashaolu won an award recognizing him as the rising basketball star in Canada. Despite his team’s loss the next day, Ashaolu had a good enough showing, with 17 points, that he assumed he would also win the game MVP award.

That award instead went to a skinny shooting guard from the winning team whom Ashaolu had never met.

“Devoe Joseph?” Ashaolu remembered thinking at the time. “Who is this guy?”

It didn’t take long for Ashaolu to get over the slight, and to make a new friend.

“It’s been all love ever since,” Ashaolu said.

Seven years after their initial encounter, Ashaolu and Joseph’s paths have crossed again — intentionally — for one season at Oregon that they hope ends with a run into the NCAA Tournament. From Oregon’s perspective, there’s a lot to love about what the two Canadians have done in helping the Ducks enter the postseason discussion.

To read the entire article by Adam Jude from The Register-Guard press here.

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