He played pro in Europe as a teen. Can Boise State forward power way to bigger dreams?
When Emmanuel Ugbo heard the Riesen Ludwigsburg basketball club was recruiting him, he could barely believe it.
To an American, the name Riesen Ludwigsburg may not mean much. But to Ugbo, then a teenager who was born in the Netherlands to Nigerian immigrants, the chance to play for Ludwigsburg never seemed like a possibility.
Ugbo didn’t even start playing basketball until he was 14, and only because he was getting too tall to be effective in soccer, the sport he’d played since childhood.
“I was just growing too fast. I was just taller than everyone,” said Ugbo, who is now 6-foot-8, meaning he’s still taller than most.
Ludwigsburg competes in the German Basketball Bundesliga, the top basketball division in Germany. The club also competes in the Basketball Champions League, a competition that features the best teams in Europe. Ludwigsburg finished third in the event in 2022.
Ugbo’s lack of experience didn’t matter. The eye test alone was enough for Ludwigsburg to offer him a spot on a team, he told the Idaho Statesman. All it meant was moving away from his friends and family as a 17-year-old and making the six-hour drive across the border to live.
But after just a couple of years with Ludwigsburg, Ugbo was ready to take a break and pursue new goals: college basketball in the United States, and becoming good enough to play in the NBA.
The first part of that opportunity came when he passed the eye test with Boise State head coach Leon Rice, among others.
“I think if (football head coach) Spencer (Danielson) saw him, if I walked him out on the football field, I might not get him back off,” Rice told the Statesman. “He is a specimen.”
Ugbo, a sophomore forward with a chiseled frame who weighs about 235, had a slow start to his Boise State career. But after starting seven of the past eight games for the Broncos, he’s finally flashing a little of the talent and ability that got him from the Netherlands to Germany to Idaho.
First steps into basketball
Like most other kids growing up in Europe, soccer was king for Ugbo’s childhood — playing it, watching it, being immersed.
He still vividly remembers the Dutch team’s loss to Spain in the 2010 World Cup final when he was 7 years old. He recently got into a passionate argument in front of the media with Spanish teammate Alvaro Cardenas about whether Spain’s extra-time goal should have been disallowed for offside.
But between bouncing around five different positions and the game’s inconvenient fit with his size, soccer didn’t lie in Ugbo’s future once he reached his teenage years.
It was while on a religious trip to Belgium at the age of 14 that Ugbo first entertained the notion of playing basketball, a sport that’s quickly growing in the Netherlands. His uncle suggested trying it out simply because of the boy’s height.
Ugbo signed up to play with his local team, CBV Binnenland, four days later. He was quickly recruited to play for BC Triple Threat by club owner Dominque Schemmekes, who Ugbo said would go on to become a “second dad” to him.
“I wasn’t really good,” Ugbo said. “(Schemmekes) recruited me after I was playing basketball for a couple of months. He’d just seen me at a game, and he was like, ‘I like that kid, he has a lot of potential.’”
The switch to BC Triple Threat also gave Ugbo a first taste of what it’s like to travel and stay away from home for basketball.
Ugbo’s new club was based in Haarlem, a city just outside Amsterdam north of his hometown, Barendrecht, a small town outside Rotterdam. He traveled on public transport for about three hours a day, four days a week, for practice and games on the weekend. Sometimes, Ugbo would stay overnight at Schemmekes’ house.
“He helped to keep me on the right path and focus on basketball,” Ugbo said about Schemmekes. “He’s not just a coach; he’s more than that. He’s a guy that cares about you as a family member. He took me in like his son.”
Ugbo’s star continued to rise. After two seasons with Triple Threat, he was recruited to play for Orange Lions Academy, a program affiliated with the Dutch basketball governing body that required him to live in Amsterdam permanently. Ugbo said the Orange Lions are considered the top academy for Dutch basketball prospects.
Then Germany came calling.
Going pro in Europe
While most American 17-year-olds are still in high school, Ugbo was moving to a new country to become a professional basketball player.
Ugbo joined Riesen Ludwigsburg in 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down sports leagues worldwide. He finally made his professional debut in October 2021, playing for a minute against Italian team Dinamo Sassari in the Champions League.
Ugbo also played for Ludwigsburg’s second team, helping them gain promotion from the third division to the second division, and the under-19 team, which won the regular season title. He also debuted for the Netherlands under-20 national team in 2022.
So much success for a player as young as Ugbo didn’t go unnoticed. He was invited to the NBA Academy Games, an initiative to identify the top international youth basketball prospects.
“When I got that opportunity, I was like, ‘I have to take it,’” Ugbo said. “It was amazing playing against the best kids your age that are all committed to all these big schools or getting recruited by these big schools.”
Ugbo remembers seeing Power Five head coaches such as John Calipari (then at Kentucky) and Jon Scheyer (Duke) there, as well as soon-to-be college basketball stars Khaman Maluach (Duke), Ugonna Onyenso (Kansas State) and Rueben Chinyelu (Florida).
That was when Boise State first noticed Ugbo — along with a slew of other schools, including Florida, Cincinnati, and Wake Forest, according to Ugbo. Boise State assistant coach David Moats remained in daily communication with Ugbo, and within weeks, he was flying back to the United States to visit Boise State.
“When you get to know him, and get to meet him and talk to him, I just love his energy and his positivity, and his communication and the way he is with his teammates,” Rice said. “And, you know, that’s really powerful.”
Boise State offered Ugbo in December 2022, and he committed to the Broncos in April 2023. Although he’d have to leave behind a burgeoning pro career in Europe, he’d already seen Dutch players succeed in America, and he thought he could be the next.
“I want to go to the NBA,” Ugbo said. “I feel like coming to the States, you obviously can get your degree. ... But you also have a bigger chance to make it to the NBA than playing back home.”
Settling in at Boise State
Ugbo arrived in Boise with a European playing pedigree, but he wasn’t able to make an immediate impact with the Broncos.
Because of NCAA rules, he wasn’t allowed to join his teammates for the 2023-24 season as a midseason enrollee. Instead, he could only train alone, and watch practice and games from the sidelines.
“It was hard being isolated,” Ugbo said.
As this season began, Ugbo was afforded a handful of minutes in the first few games, but then his playing time dropped. In Boise State’s 13 games between Clemson (Nov. 17) and Utah State (Jan. 11), Ugbo played double-digit minutes just twice.
Ugbo acknowledged that the college game was more challenging than what he had seen in Europe. He said the spacing of players makes the court feel tighter in the United States, and the college players are faster and more athletic.
On the flip side, he thinks there was more communication in the European game, which has helped him stand out as a leader in college.
Starting with Boise State’s 96-55 win over Wyoming on Jan. 14, Ugbo has been in the starting lineup nearly every game. He scored 12 points in a win over San Jose State on Feb. 7, but he’s still faced struggles as well. He had no points in 16 minutes in a loss last weekend at San Diego State, and he’s had a couple of games starting but seeing less than 10 minutes of playing time.
Following the 79-52 win over San Jose State, Cardenas took a minute, unprompted, to praise Ugbo’s work behind the scenes — just minutes before their World Cup argument.
“He comes every single day with the same energy. He works his butt off,” Cardenas said. “He brings good energy, and everybody’s more positive when he’s in here. I just want to give a quick shout-out to Emms because it’s rare to see something like that.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2025 at 3:07 PM.
