ASU senior Promise Amukamara pushes past an Oregon defender on Friday, Jan. 23, 2015, at Wells Fargo Arena. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press)The royal Nigerian bloodline breeds athleticism and instills a competitive spirit.
Specifically, this is the case in the Amukamara family. ASU women's basketball senior guard Promise Amukamara has lived in America her whole life, but her family descends from Nigerian royalty.
Her only brother, Prince, is a cornerback for the New York Giants. Princess, the oldest sibling, played junior varsity football in high school. Precious competed in track and field at Grand Canyon University.
Peace, just a grade younger, competes alongside Amukamara on ASU’s basketball team. Passionate plays basketball and runs track at Millennium High School.
Promise is blossoming into a star on the hardwood. She didn’t play basketball until sixth grade, where she tried out for her school basketball team to play with her sister Precious.
“She didn’t help me at all,” Promise said with a laugh.
It was up to Promise to hone her talent. Having fun and getting exercise is a reason many children begin playing. Even after making the team and becoming a strong player, Promise had competitive needs.
“Growing up, I always thought (Peace) was better than me,” she said before quickly adding, “I never told her that.”
Admitting that someone — particularly a younger sibling — was better would go against her competitive spirit.
“We always want to compete and always want to be the best at what we’re doing,” Promise said. “Growing up, that’s what was installed in our minds.”
Peace said they didn’t play against each other when they were young, but the fiercely competitive junior would probably agree that she was better than her older sister all those years ago. Even now that Promise has taken the reins at ASU, Peace is confident in her own abilities.
“I feel like I could beat her now,” she said.
So, with a fear of inferiority haunting her in middle school, Promise worked.
“As soon as I got in the gym, started working on my game, I slowly began growing into the player I am today,” she said.
She had to work hard to get to ASU. In high school, she didn’t play basketball year-round and her club team, the Arizona Venom, typically didn’t compete in first-tier tournaments. Despite flying under the radar and not being heavily recruited, Turner Thorne took notice of Promise the summer before her senior year of high school.
"I watched every club game she had because I was so intrigued with her,” Turner Thorne said.
As Turner Thorne reminisced to those days, her voice rose with long-lasted awe. It was a time before ASU had even began actively recruiting Amukamara.
“She was just the best athlete on the floor every game and she shot a gap quicker than anybody I had ever seen,” she said.
Coaching a defensive team, Turner Thorne valued her skills at getting in the passing lane and her lateral game. Promise’s quickness stems from genes and training in track and field, and Turner Thorne thought that if she utilized those skills on the court, she could be a force. Promise didn’t play year-round but was already better than the kids who practiced full-time.
“That’s part of what intrigued me,” Turner Thorne said. “Some of these kids, they play year round. … Well, Promise didn’t (play year-round) and I thought, ‘Wow, look where she’s at right now.’”
Promise improved mightily. She’s now the anchor of ASU’s dominant defense.
Promise presses hard on defense. From the moment the ball handler steps past the half court line, she’s against her, finding holes to poke the ball free.
Sometimes, she doesn’t even wait until the ball handler gets across the court. ASU implements a steady flow of full-court press throughout the game and Promise is the catalyst. She leads the team with about two steals per game, and is a large reason ASU allows just 55.4 points per game, 25th best in the NCAA.
She is the Nigerian Nightmare.
“My husband gets credited for that (nickname),” Turner Thorne said, laughing.
He remembered former NFL fullback Christian Okoye, who had the same nickname when he played in the late 80s-early 90s. Turner Thorne called her the Nigerian Nightmare at last year’s end-of-season banquet as a joke and it stuck.
“It’s very appropriate,” she said.
ASU junior Peace Amukamara attempts to block the Oregon charge toward the goal as ASU takes on Oregon on Friday, Jan. 23, 2015, at Wells Fargo Arena. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press)Peace shares the nickname, Turner Thorne said. At times, she refers to them as “Nigerian Nightmare One” and “Nigerian Nightmare Two.”
The sisters have been playing together long enough, they can sometimes read what the other is thinking. Peace said her fondest on-court memory with Promise is a simple one.
“When I’m taking the ball out of bounds, there’s sometimes we do this little play where she’ll backdoor cut and I’ll always find her on that play,” Peace said.
Unlike Precious to Promise so many years ago, Amukamara has helped Peace on the court. As the sole senior on the team, Amukamara is working on becoming a leader in front of the whole team.
This goes from her determination at practice to her efforts on the court. She’s becoming more aggressive on offense and sometimes taking control when it stalls, and she’s proud of what she calls her biggest strength: “Penetrating the defense and finishing left or right… and my pull-up shot.”
Promise, though not a sharpshooter, has developed into a respectable jumper. She is athletic enough to drive by defenders and can finish with both hands. This results in a high field goal percentage — shooting .497, she has the highest percent of ASU's rotation guards, and is a full 10 percent higher than either of the other two starting guards.
In fact, she said her work on the offensive side is her biggest improvement this year.
“(I’m) confident with my shot, I’m shooting a lot more and I’m getting to the basket a lot more easier than I have in the past,” she said.
She’s confident and becoming a leader, but she still isn’t sure what her future holds. She said she’s willing to grab opportunities that present themselves and is unsure about declaring for the WNBA draft.
“I don’t know (about the WNBA),” she said. “I’m just focused on finishing out the season and doing well.”
Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @Logan_Newsman
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