Inside the workouts that make Marquette's Oso Ighodaro one of the nation's most skilled big men

Every night, Marquette men's basketball assistant coach Mark Dixon knows the text message is coming from Oso Ighodaro.

The 6-foot-11 big man is meticulous in his approach to getting better. So when Ighodaro looks at his schedule for the next day, he finds pockets of time when he can get into the gym with Dixon to work on developing the skills that have made him one of the most unique players in college basketball.

The wicked crossover dribbles. The pinpoint, cross-court passes. The spin into a left-handed hook. All those moves have been painstakingly worked on with countless reps between Dixon and Ighodaro.

"He pushes me," Ighodaro said. "He gets me outside my comfort zone to try things.

"Makes me get more creative with the ball. He's just there for me every day. Probably worked out with him almost every day for three years now. Just been getting a lot better and just super grateful for him."

The results speak for themselves. Ighodaro played 38 minutes as a freshman in the 2020-21 season. Dixon arrived the next season as a graduate assistant on new head coach Shaka Smart's staff. Now as a senior, Ighodaro is averaging 14.6 points and 7.1 rebounds per game as the ninth-ranked Golden Eagles (16-5, 7-3 Big East) head into Saturday's game against Georgetown (8-12, 1-8) in Washington.

With his size and skill, Ighodaro is seen as a likely first-round pick in the NBA draft.

"When I was a GA, that was one of my main jobs, to be in the gym with our players," Dixon said. "You take it on because you feel like you play a big part in their skill development.

"So we gravitated toward each other. He really embraced it. He loved it. He'll text every night. He's mature. He'll look at his schedule and see what time he wants to get in. We'll carve out like 30-45 minutes for a workout and then we'll go from there."

Oso Ighodaro is an unorthodox big man

The details of the workouts change, but they usually follow the same track.

"We always start with ball-handling," Ighodaro said. "Ball-handling, passing, then finishes and dribble moves that end in finishes. Free throws, shooting, floaters, hooks. Everything I do on the court, we work on."

Arrive early to a MU game, and fans can catch a glimpse of Dixon and Ighodaro doing a ball-handling routine, going down and back across the court with in-and-out dribbles and crossovers.

Ighodaro's skill with the ball is what makes him unique. He can grab a rebound and push the ball himself in transition. He's also very dangerous running inverted pick-and-rolls with a guard. According to Synergy Sports numbers provided by MU blog Paint Touches, the Golden Eagles average 1.37 points over the 27 possessions in which Ighodaro has been the ball-handler in a pick-and-roll. That mark is in the 98th percentile in the nation, impressive for a 6-11 player.

The ball skills also give him a one-on-one edge with opposing big men.

"The baseline spin that I do a lot, (Dixon) started working on that with me," Ighodaro said. "And I've been pulling it out in the last two years a ton. Just doing it different ways. Getting creative with it."

Big East foes scout Ighodaro closely and are scheming against him. That requires Dixon and Ighodaro to stay a step ahead.

"We've been adding counters to that baseline spin-reverse-layup move that he likes to do," Dixon said. "We've been adding counters because a lot of times, teams are going to cut him off and use the baseline as a second defender.

"So I've been showing him how to counter that, and still be able to use it. So we added the drift pass out of it, the baseline pass he's been making. The sell-baseline-and-skip-pass across-the-court and then other ways to go score out of it. My favorite would be the half/spin toward the baseline when it works, and then obviously seeing him counter off that and use his instincts."

Ighodaro is shooting an absurd 120 of 191 (62.8%) this season. While Ighodaro lacks a traditional jump shot, he finds creative ways to score.

He is 9 of 16 on right-handed hook shots, and 2 of 3 with his left hand, according to Paint Touches. Synergy Sports classifies Ighodaro's 1.2 points per possessions on his 45 floaters in the 95th percentile in the country.

Mark Dixon a valuable member of Shaka Smart's staff

Dixon likes to say that coaching found him.

He was an undersized big man at Royal Palm Beach High School in Florida, so he had to learn those out-of-the-box moves that he now teaches Ighodaro.

"I'm only 6-1, 6-2 on a good day, but I was in the post," Dixon said. "Being undersized, and I can't jump over a phone book, so being able to use creative ways to use the rim as a defender.

"And being able to add spin on the ball and understand when I had the angle, inside hand or outside hand for layup, adding all those mixes. He's so versatile, so he's got the hook. His hook is way better than I ever had. He got a floater that's way better than I ever had. So just balancing all that. He's 6-11 so obviously we want him to dunk the ball. I'm not out there banging with those guys, so there's some times when you have to use the scoop. So it's balancing our knowledge off each other."

Dixon had some NCAA Divisions 2 and 3 offers, but he decided to attend Florida International. He stayed around basketball as a student manager as a freshman, then drifted away from the game for a stretch. A revelation came when he had a job delivering food.

"It motivated me," Dixon said. "So I started looking into college basketball and looking into coaching. I was prepared to go back to my high school to coach."

Fate intervened when Jeremy Ballard took over as FIU's coach in 2018 when Dixon was a junior. The director of basketball operations was retained and he remembered Dixon as a freshman and thought he would fit with the new staff.

"We all clicked," Dixon said. "I learned so much. They gave me little tasks. I was practicing, I was helping in practice. Players would ask me to come work them out. I was learning a bunch of stuff on the fly and those guys kind of took me in."

Ballard and several members of his staff worked for Smart at Virginia Commonwealth. When Dixon graduated, they helped him land as a graduate assistant with Smart at Texas for the 2020-21 season.

With the Longhorns, Dixon learned even more about skill development, particularly with big men like Jericho Sims and Kai Jones.

"Coach (Neill) Berry been the position coach for the bigs since I been at the high-major Division 1 (level)," Dixon said. "The thing I really, really learned is just it's reps.

"It's the simple stuff. Sprinting out of a roll, catching the ball, less dribbles, how to set a screen, keeping your butt to the baseline and all the type of screens we have. I just learned that kind of stuff takes plenty, plenty reps."

Dixon says he has "found my calling"

Dixon was a graduate assistant for two seasons at MU, then Smart promoted him to assistant coach last summer.

“When I first came in, I was a kid and (the players) were kids," Dixon said. "Watching them grow up, that’s been big. Now I think I found my calling in helping these guys.

"The thing I get joy out of the development part is they’ll grab me after the game and say, ‘Hey did you see the play that we worked on?’ Sometimes, I’ll be so into the game that I forget it. But they love that."

The players relate to him as a younger assistant coach.

"One of the things he’s done really well is he has such a good relationship with Oso that he can tell him when he’s not being his best self," Smart said of Dixon. "But he can also really, really uplift him and make him feel good about himself.

"And O, as we know, when he’s feeling good about himself, he’s a heckuva player."

Dixon knows the right buttons to push with Ighodaro. Like when the big man struggled at the free-throw line early in the season, going 16 of 34 (47.1%) in MU's first five games.

"He gets the biggest kick when it comes with a consequence," Dixon said. "So, at the end of a workout, I’ll say you got to go 10 for 12 (on free throws).

"If you don’t go 10 for 12, there might be a run or a couple pushups, or the VersaClimber. He goes 10 for 12, then I got to do three rounds on the VersaClimber and he gets enjoyment out of that. If he gets the 10 for 12, I got to run suicides, down and back, we call them 22s. I got to make the time and he gets on the clock.

"So that’s how I get it out of them. Because, the free-throw thing early in the season was mental. He’s not a bad free-throw shooter at all, it was mental. He let that go and had fun with it."

Ighodaro is 50 for 66 (75.7%) on free throws since those first five games.

Ighodaro has taken his game to new heights in recent weeks. During MU's five-game winning streak, he has scored 90 points on 40-for-58 shooting while pulling down 38 rebounds.

But Ighodaro's approach never changed. He just finds time, then gets into the gym for extra reps.

"I’m so proud of him," Dixon said. "It’s the consistency that I come back to. He put the work in.

"He knows what he wants and he goes after it. He deserves everything that’s coming his way and everything that’s here for him right now."