WINTER PARK, Fla. \u2014\u00a0It has been a homecoming for Omar Figueroa and Jah Nze as they pursue their college basketball careers at a place they both call home.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
\u00a0Second-year Rollins College basketball player Omar Figueroa graduated from Orlando Christian High School
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\u00a0First-year player Jah Nze grew up in Oviedo and went to Hagerty High School
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\u00a0The duo is averaging close to 35 points a game for Rollins this season.<\/p>\n
Figueroa, who was born in Puerto Rico, moved to the United States and went to high school at Orlando Christian. Nze grew up in Oviedo and graduated from Hagerty High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cRollins was the perfect school, because not only is it great in what I’m studying, which is business, it also works with basketball,”\u00a0Figueroa said. “I wanted a bigger role. I wanted to impact the floor in different areas.”<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a blessing,” Nze said. “I love being home. I love having my family here to come watch my games. My girlfriend is here to come watch my game. It’s a big deal for me.”<\/p>\n
The duo played against one another in high school and initially went their separate ways after graduation. Nze played two seasons at North Florida and a year at Mercer. Figueroa was at North Alabama for a season and Flagler for two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’ve been essential to what we’ve done,”\u00a0Rollins men\u2019s basketball coach Kevin Hogan said. “They’re both really good guys. In today’s transfer portal world, you don’t know that until any guy gets here. For them to have done what they’ve done together this year has been pretty neat to see.”<\/p>\n
Figueroa is in his second year at Rollins, redshirting after an injury last year. The two stepped onto the court this year and have become a dynamic duo. The two of them are averaging close to 35 points a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s amazing, that guy, he can really shoot. He can really score. He’s one of, like, one of the best teammates I’ve ever had,” Nze said of\u00a0Figueroa. “He comes in, works every day, shoots every day after practice. It’s very fun having a backcourt like that.”<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving that bond and really connecting with him has been really good for this team,”\u00a0Figueroa said. “Having him as my shooting guard and seeing him evolve and be the guy that he is right now has been amazing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINTER PARK, Fla. \u2014\u00a0It has been a homecoming for Omar Figueroa and Jah Nze as they pursue their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[10929,1238,274,111,28,115,1335,139,141,140,110,1746,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-180680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-college-sports","9":"tag-app-sports","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-orange-county","15":"tag-orlando","16":"tag-orlando-headlines","17":"tag-orlando-news","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-thomas-cook","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}