MORGANTOWN — Harlan Obioha’s entire athletic career has been a contradiction of sorts.

Maybe it begins with his nickname, “Big Harlan,” which, as the only 7-footer on the WVU men’s basketball roster makes sense, but the big guy isn’t as quite as big as he used to be.

“I came into college at 350 (pounds),” Obioha said.

That was back in 2021, when he enrolled at Niagara and redshirted his first season. There was another stop at UNC Wilmington, where Obioha – pronounced Obee-o-ha – helped the Seahawks reach the NCAA tournament last season by winning the Coastal Athletic Association tournament.

By the time he accepted WVU coach Ross Hodge’s sales pitch to join the Mountaineers this season …

“I think he came in at 305, somewhere around there,” Hodge said. “He’s at 265, 267 now.”

To that point, Obioha credits a great relationship with WVU strength and conditioning coach Jason Martinez.

“Our strength and conditioning coach, Jason Martinez, has been life changing for me,” Obioha said. “We talk every day and every night before I go to bed. It’s never been him getting on me, but just the conversations we have. That’s been the biggest thing for me is my relationship with Jason.”

And then there is the scouting report on Obioha, both from the big man himself and from Hodge.

“He’s a really good passer,” Hodge said. “Honestly, we need for him to be a little more aggressive, because his first instinct is to pass. He really likes to pass. He’ll pass out of the post, even when he’s got really deep post position.”

Obioha also considers himself a pass-first kind of guy, which goes back to his days as a little kid watching his mother, Tabetha, play college basketball at Kansas Wesleyan. That was his first introduction to the sport that never quite let Obioha from its grasp.

Now, that pass-first talk is fine, until you check out Obioha’s stats from his senior season at Hoxie (Kan.) High School. He scored more than 1,000 points. Not in his entire prep career, but just in his senior season alone, when he averaged 28 points, 11 rebounds and four assists per game. He was named the state’s Class AA Player of the Year.

College offers did not pour in after that season. He did receive a Division I offer from Ole Miss to play both football and basketball, but Obioha decided basketball was his game and enrolled in a Colorado prep school for more seasoning.

That extra year led him to Niagara.

“I came into college as a bruiser,” Obioha said. “I’d go in there and give you 15 minutes of hard basketball, but nothing more than that.”

That’s not the case anymore and it’s certainly not what Hodge is expecting at WVU.

“Where I think the weight loss helps him the most is being able to (play) for longer stretches,” Hodge said. “He’s light. He can move. He’s just got to continue to get in cardio shape, where you can take that 18-20 minutes per game and extend that to 22 or 25 minutes per game.”

At UNC Wilmington last season, Obioha averaged 9.2 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. He grabbed nine rebounds in the 82-72 loss against Texas Tech in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Obioha expects bigger things in his final season. He’s in better shape. Hodge raves about the big man’s ability to move on the court and pass the ball in pick-and-roll situations.

“Me being an older guy now, I have to step into a leadership role,” Obioha said. “Being an everyday guy is something we’ve talked about a lot, just being there and being an energized guy and being a guy the younger guys can look up to.”

And he’s being asked to score more, too, something Obioha admits takes getting used to, but he’s making those adjustments.

“Somewhere along the lines, I just became a pass-first guy,” Obioha said. “That really kind of translated into college. I really never thought anything of it until this year.”

The last thing to know about Obioha is also somewhat of a surprise. He loved basketball while growing up in Kansas, but was always more of a Wichita State and Kansas State fan.

“Not really K.U.,” Obioha said of the Jayhawks, who WVU will host on Jan. 10. “I’ve had that game circled since I first got here.”