By Colin Hass-Hill
Ebenezer Dowuona, a 6-foot-10 four-star big man and 2020 Ohio State target, wakes up in Georgia and picks up his phone around 7 a.m. to see and hear from his mother, who still lives in Ghana.
He hasn’t been back to his native country or his hometown of Accra since he and his brother, Emmanuel, left Africa for the United States in 2014 with a legal guardian who had a connection to the family.
When he chose to depart the only home he knew at the age of 12 with his older brother, Dowuona gave up the chance to see his younger brother, who was just 6 months old at the time, grow up. About two years ago, his mother gave birth to a girl, whom Dowuona has never met. Their relationship mainly exists through daily calls on FaceTime.
Dowuona, a nearly 6-foot-7 pre-teen, had hope of an improved future. He loved Ghana, but after playing basketball for three months – yes, only three months – he and his older brother decided to move to the United States filled with hope and vast goals.
“We felt like it was a chance for us to make something happen,” Dowuona told Eleven Warriors. “Personally, my goal was to make it to the NBA. When I came up here, that’s been on my mind till now to make it to the NBA. We’ve been working every day. That’s the goal. Hopefully we make it to the NBA.”
So far, the Dowuona brothers have taken notable strides in their basketball careers, parlaying their abilities into high-major offers.
Emmanuel joined Purdue’s basketball team last year as a three-star center, picking the Boilermakers over offers from Tennessee, Clemson, Connecticut and others. He redshirted as a true freshman in 2018-19 and will play his first collegiate minutes next season.
Ebenezer, the No. 123 overall prospect and the 16th-ranked center in the class of 2020, has double-digit scholarship offers. He said four schools – Ohio State, Mississippi, Georgia Tech and Auburn – are pursuing him hardest right now.
The Buckeyes offered Dowuona a scholarship in November, he told Eleven Warriors. He’s one of a number of power forward/center prospects that members of the Ohio State staff visited last week. Coaches also stopped by to see four-stars Dawson Garcia, Mark Williams and Zach Loveday
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