Arike Ogunbowale (born March 2, 1997) is an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player for the

Dallas Wings The Dallas Wings are an American basketball team based in Arlington, Texas. The Wings play in the Western Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team is owned by a group which is led by chairman Bill Cameron. Greg ...

of the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...

(WNBA). She played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

for the

Notre Dame Fighting Irish The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the athletic teams that represent the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish participate in 23 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I intercollegiate sports and in the NCAA's Division ...

, before being drafted by the Wings with the fifth overall pick of the

2019 WNBA draft The 2019 WNBA draft was the league's draft for the 2019 WNBA season. On March 19, the league announced the draft would be held on April 10 at Nike New York headquarters. The first round was televised on ESPN2, and the second and third rounds were ...

. She was the Most Outstanding Player of Notre Dame's 2018 national title run, hitting game-winning baskets in both the semi-final and

championship game In sport, a championship is a Competition#Sports, competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match sy ...

Career

High school & earlier

Ogunbowale came out of the eighth grade at Our Redeemer Lutheran School in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. In her last year at Our Redeemer, Arike helped the Our Redeemer girls’ team win the national championship at the 2011 Tournament of Champions sponsored by th
Lutheran Basketball Association of America
She was named the MVP of the tournament. She went on to play high school basketball at

Divine Savior Holy Angels High School Divine Savior Holy Angels High School (DSHA) is an all-girls Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee and sponsored by the Sisters of the Divine Savior. Hist ...

(DSHA) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. DSHA has long been known for its multiple national and state titles in numerous sports. Ogunbowale returned to DSHA on December 30, 2021 to be inducted into the Hall of Fame there. In the 2014–2015 season, the team won the

Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) is the regulatory body for all high school sports in Wisconsin. Its history dates to 1895, making it the earliest continually existing high school athletic organization in the country. ...

Division I title, with Ogunbowale averaging 27.2 points per game. She scored 55 points in a semi-final game against an undefeated team. Ogunbowale was ranked ninth in the world, named 2015

Wisconsin Miss Basketball Each year the Wisconsin Miss Basketball award is given to the person chosen as the best high school girls basketball player in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The award has been given since 1983. Winners are chosen by the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches ...

and was a McDonald's High School All-America selection.

College

Ogunbowale averaged 11.4 points per game in her freshman season at Notre Dame as a reserve player, and became a regular starter the next year. In her junior season, Ogunbowale helped the Fighting Irish win the 2018 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament, making game-winning baskets in the semifinal against

UConn The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Ha ...

and in

the final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

against

Mississippi State Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univer ...

. Shortly after the end of the 2017–18 school year, the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

named her as its female

Athlete of the Year Athlete of the Year is an award given by various sports organizations for the athlete whom they have determined to be deserving of such recognition. Definition of "athlete" *In many nations, an "athlete" primarily refers to someone who participat ...

across all sports, sharing honors with men's winner

Lamar Jackson Lamar Demeatrice Jackson Jr. (born January 7, 1997) is an American football quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Louisville, where he won the Heisman Trophy during his soph ...

of Louisville football. In her next and final season at Notre Dame, she again helped them to

of the NCAA tournament but this time, despite contributing 31 points through that match and a tournament average of 22.8 points, she missed 1 of 2 free throws in the final seconds against Baylor, with her miss providing the final 1-point margin.

Professional

Ogunbowale was the fifth overall pick in the

by the

. Ogunbowale was selected as the WNBA 2021 All-Star Game Most Valuable Player (MVP) with 26 points in the team WNBA win versus the women's Olympic squad, Team USA (July 14, 2021). During the 2019 season, she was third in the league in scoring, averaging 19.1 points per game. She scored 20 or more points in 13 of her final 14 games, including the final 11 of the season. After the season, Ogunbowale was named to the All-Rookie Team.

Personal life

Ogunbowale was born in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

to Nigerian parents Yolanda and Gregory Ogunbowale. She is the youngest of three children. She is of

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

descent and her name ”Arike” means a child you treasure, cherish, pamper and love in the Yoruba language. Her father served in the Nigerian military while her mother Yolanda played

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

DePaul University DePaul University is a private university, private, Catholic higher education, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Congregation of the Mission, Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-centu ...

and her brother Dare played

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

and is a

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offen ...

for the

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division, and play their home ga ...

. She is also a cousin of basketball player

Diamond Stone Diamond Louis Stone (born February 10, 1997) is an American professional basketball player. He played one season of college basketball for Maryland before being drafted 40th overall in the 2016 NBA draft by the New Orleans Pelicans. High school ...

. From 2009 to 2012, Ogunbowale was part of four Division One Wisconsin State High School Champions soccer teams. In April 2018, Ogunbowale was announced as one of the celebrities who would compete on

season 26 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

of ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the forma ...

''. She was partnered with professional dancer

Gleb Savchenko Gleb Savchenko (russian: Глеб Савченко; born 16 September 1983) is a Russian-American dancer, choreographer, and model, who is currently a professional dancer on the U.S. version of '' Dancing with the Stars''. He previously appear ...

. Ogunbowale and Savchenko were eliminated from the competition on May 7, 2018, placing 7th.

Career statistics

WNBA

Regular season

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Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

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, style="background:#d3d3d3;", 22° , , style="background:#d3d3d3;", 22° , , 34.0 , , .412 , , .336 , , .856 , , 2.8 , , 3.4 , , 1.6 , , 0.0 , , 2.1 , , style="background:#d3d3d3;", 22.8° , - , style="text-align:left;",

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, 32 , , 32 , , 31.3 , , .383 , , .376 , , .864 , , 3.2 , , 3.3 , , 1.1 , , 0.0 , , 2.1 , , 18.7 , - , style="text-align:left;",

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, 30 , , 30 , , 31.4 , , .400 , , .352 , , .798 , , 3.3 , , 3.6 , , 1.5 , , 0.1 , , 1.8 , , 19.7 , - , style="text-align:left;", Career , style="text-align:left;", 4 years, 1 team , 117 , , 112 , , 32.1 , , .395 , , .355 , , .832 , , 2.9 , , 3.4 , , 1.2 , , 0.0 , , 2.0 , , 19.8

Postseason

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, 1 , , 1 , , 35.0 , , .500 , , .500 , , .500 , , 2.0 , , 2.0 , , 1.0 , , 0.0 , , 1.0 , , 22.0 , - , style="text-align:left;",

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, 1 , , 0 , , 6.0 , , .000 , , .000 , , – , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", Career , style="text-align:left;", 2 years, 1 team , 2 , , 1 , , 41.0 , , .421 , , .417 , , .500 , , 2.0 , , 2.0 , , 1.0 , , 0.0 , , 1.0 , , 22.0

College

Source: College statistics courtesy of NCAA Statistics

References

External links

* * * * *
Arike Paulina Ogunbowale
at the

Turkish Basketball Federation The Turkish Basketball Federation ( tr, Türkiye Basketbol Federasyonu, TBF) is the national federation for basketball in Turkey. It is headquartered in Istanbul. They organize the Basketball Super League, the Turkish Basketball Cup and the Turk ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ogunbowale, Arike 1997 births Living people All-American college women's basketball players American people of Yoruba descent American sportspeople of Nigerian descent American women's basketball players Basketball players at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics Basketball players from Milwaukee Dallas Wings draft picks Dallas Wings players McDonald's High School All-Americans Notre Dame Fighting Irish women's basketball players Point guards Women's National Basketball Association All-Stars Yoruba sportswomen Youth Olympic gold medalists for the United States