Asbjørn Engelhardt Midtgaard (born 20 September 1997) is a Danish 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. He last played for the

Antwerp Giants Antwerp Giants, named Telenet Giants Antwerp for sponsorship reasons, are a Belgian professional basketball club based in Antwerp. Their home arena is Lotto Arena. The club plays in the BNXT League, the highest tier of Belgian basketball. The clu ...

of the

BNXT League The BNXT League, for sponsorship reasons the betFirst BNXT League, is a professional basketball league in Belgium and the Netherlands. The league is the first tier in both the Dutch and Belgian system, replacing the Dutch Basketball League, DBL a ...

. He 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

Wichita State Shockers The Wichita State Shockers are the athletic teams that represent Wichita State University, located in Wichita, Kansas, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the NCAA Division I ranks, primarily competing in the American Athletic Conference ( ...

and the

Grand Canyon Antelopes The Grand Canyon Antelopes (more commonly referred to as the Lopes) are the 21 athletic teams representing Grand Canyon University, located in Phoenix, Arizona. Most of the university's athletic teams compete at the NCAA Division I level in the ...

Early life and career

Midtgaard grew up playing

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

and

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 ...

, as well as

weightlifting Weightlifting generally refers to activities in which people lift Weight training#Equipment, weights, often in the form of dumbbells or barbells. People lift various kinds of weights for a variety of different reasons. These may include various t ...

and

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponi ...

. He started playing basketball at age 14, and joined the

Hørsholm 79ers Hørsholm 79'ers Basketball Klub is a Danish basketball club from Hørsholm founded in 1979, playing both in the male and female Danish championships. The women's team is one of the most successful teams in Danish history, having won 9 national ch ...

of the

Basketligaen The Basketligaen ( en, The Basketball League) is the highest professional basketball league in Denmark. The original men's first division was founded in 1957 and the current league was founded in 1998. All-time record holder in league titles is B ...

, the top professional league in Denmark, three years later. In the 2016–17 season, he averaged 8.6 points and 6.3 rebounds per game and was named Basketligaen Young Player of the Year.

College career

Midtgaard received limited playing time during his three seasons at

Wichita State Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in ...

. He averaged 2.7 points and 2.6 rebounds per game in his time with the program. For his senior season, he transferred to

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

. On 28 November 2020, Midtgaard scored a career-high 20 points in a 94–63 win against Benedictine Mesa. As a senior, Midtgaard averaged 14.2 points, 9.7 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game, and shot an

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

-best 70.7 percent from the field. He received First Team All-

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington (state), Washington, and Texa ...

, Newcomer of the Year and All-Defensive Team honors.

Professional career

After going undrafted in the

2021 NBA draft The 2021 NBA draft, the 75th edition of the National Basketball Association's annual draft, was held on July 29, 2021, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. With the first overall pick, the Detroit Pistons selected Cade Cunningham. The NBA us ...

, Midtgaard signed with the

Orlando Magic The Orlando Magic are an American professional basketball team based in Orlando, Florida. The Magic compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The franchise was establ ...

for the

2021 NBA Summer League The 2021 NBA Summer League was an off-season competition held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) at the Thomas and Mack Center and Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas, Nevada on the campus of University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The summer league cons ...

. He became the first Grand Canyon player since the program entered the NCAA Division I to be invited to the Summer League. On 16 August 2021, Midtgaard signed his first professional contract with

ZZ Leiden ZZ Leiden Basketball, also known as Zorg en Zekerheid Leiden, is a basketball club based in Leiden, Netherlands. The club plays in the BNXT League, the domestic first tier league. Their home games are played at Vijf Meihal, which has 2,000 seats. ...

of the

. He was nominated for the BNXT League Most Valuable Player award and ended third in voting. Midtgaard earned a spot in the All-

Dream Team. On June 24, 2022, he put pen to paper on a deal with the

Crailsheim Merlins The Crailsheim Merlins, for sponsorships reasons named Hakro Merlins Crailsheim, is a professional basketball club based in Crailsheim, Germany. Established in 1986, the club plays in the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL), the highest professional leag ...

of the German

Basketball Bundesliga The Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) (English language: ''Federal Basketball League''), for sponsorship reasons named easyCredit BBL, is the highest level league of professional club basketball in Germany. The league comprises 18 teams. A BBL season ...

. He wrapped up the 2022-23 campaign, averaging 8.1 points and 4.2 rebounds per game in Bundesliga play. On July 16 2023, Midtgaard was signed by the

of the BNXT League. He attended only one BNXT contest for Antwerp and parted ways with the team on October 4, 2023 after having suffered a knee injury.

National team career

Midtgaard represented

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

at the

2015 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship Division B The 2015 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship Division B was an international youth basketball competition held in Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europ ...

in Austria, and averaged 7.3 points and 8.4 rebounds per game.

Career statistics

College

, - , style="text-align:left;", 2017–18 , style="text-align:left;",

, 8 , , 0 , , 6.1 , , .500 , , – , , .500 , , 2.1 , , .0 , , .1 , , .3 , , 1.4 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2018–19 , style="text-align:left;",

, 34 , , 3 , , 11.3 , , .632 , , – , , .595 , , 3.1 , , .2 , , .1 , , .8 , , 3.9 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2019–20 , style="text-align:left;",

, 24 , , 1 , , 8.0 , , .484 , , – , , .333 , , 2.0 , , .3 , , .1 , , .5 , , 1.5 , - , style="text-align:left;",

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

, style="text-align:left;",

, 24 , , 24 , , 28.7 , , style="background:#cfecec;", .707* , , .000 , , .718 , , 9.7 , , .7 , , .4 , , 1.3 , , 14.2 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 90 , , 28 , , 14.6 , , .658 , , .000 , , .644 , , 4.5 , , .3 , , .2 , , .8 , , 5.8

References

External links

Grand Canyon Antelopes bioWichita State Shockers bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Midtgaard, Ashbjorn 1997 births Living people Centers (basketball) Crailsheim Merlins players Danish expatriate basketball people in the United States Danish men's basketball players Grand Canyon Antelopes men's basketball players Hørsholm 79ers players Sportspeople from Helsingør Wichita State Shockers men's basketball players ZZ Leiden players