If Oso Ighodaro gets selected in the NBA draft this month − or plays pro ball somewhere else next season − the 6-foot-9, 21-year-old forward will be able to put his degrees to good use right away with those first couple of paychecks.

At Marquette, Ighodaro helped lead the Golden Eagles to three NCAA tournament wins in the past two seasons − but he also earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in business in just four years.

“I like numbers,” Ighodaro said during a phone interview from Los Angeles, where he is working out and preparing for the draft. “I like the idea of managing money. I've never really done it before.”

Look, this isn’t a viral kind of sports story. “Smart guy also plays basketball really well” isn’t a big, compelling headline. But just think about this for a minute.

Ighodaro became the first Marquette men’s basketball player ever to be named Big East Scholar-Athlete of the Year. (The Golden Eagles joined the league in 2005.) And Ighodaro was one of those masked-up, socially distanced, forced-to-learn-from-home virtual kids who started their college experience online only. And to make it more challenging, Ighodaro left his home in Arizona to get acclimated to life in Milwaukee – from his dorm room, with his computer.

It wasn’t easy at all.

“I learn better with a teacher in front of me, but I definitely got used to it,” Ighodaro said.

We may be only just beginning to understand, appreciate and empathize with what these pandemic kids went through − from mental health challenges to taking classes seriously on a screen to isolation when, as high school seniors, that maybe wasn't necessary. One study said that 80% of college students felt lonely in college and one media outlet called this the "Bummer" generation.

Ighodaro said being part of the basketball team helped and he even had a little more free time to work out for basketball and prepare for his debut.

Ighodaro, who is the son of two educators, earned a 3.53 cumulative GPA as an undergrad. He got a great jump on his degrees by earning about 60 credits before he even got to Wisconsin Avenue, by doing well in his Advanced Placement and dual enrollment for college credit course work at Desert Vista High School in Arizona.

With a love for crunching numbers, he followed in the footsteps of his older sister, Osaso, and pursued the finance degree. He excelled on the basketball court, of course, averaging 13.4 points and 6.9 rebounds last year for the Sweet 16 Golden Eagles.

But he had already graduated, so he needed to keep taking classes to remain eligible to play a final season for his senior year. His academic advisor, Adrienne Ridgeway, helped him figure out a way to add one more class per semester, as well as a summer-school session, to the Marquette business online program. He got his master’s with a 3.8 GPA.

It's impressive to see a story like this these days. He stayed at Marquette in an era of NIL, where swaths of students are hitting up the transfer portal on a regular basis.

There were three strong factors that contributed to Ighodaro’s motivation and achievement.

Professors Christopher Swain, in finance, and Melissa Shew, in business ethics, worked with the unpredictable schedule of a Division I college athlete while making the classroom come to life.

“Ms. Shew just made the class so interesting. And I think she just really loved her job,” Ighodaro said. “Every day she came in with great energy and got to know her students and cared about us. Even after the class was over, she checked on me and that meant a lot to me. And Professor Swain kind of did the same thing. Both of them were really good to me.”

Ighodaro also has good organizational and time-management skills to plot out the time he would need to make his deadlines.

“The start of each week, I write in my planner all the stuff that I have due for that week,” he said. “I like crossing it off − after I do something."

And finally, there’s nothing like competition to bring out the best in a Marquette student-athlete.

"Yeah, for sure a shout out Stevie Mitchell,” Ighodaro said. “He gets a 4.0 every single semester and I just want to compete with him. He set the standard.”

Ighodaro said he and Mitchell, a finance and information systems double major, were up to get the one nomination for the Big East honors.

More: Nickel: Marquette's Oso Ighodaro made big improvements to his game with help from innovative tips by Shaka Smart

“Instead of nominating himself, he said they should nominate me,” Ighodaro said. “It was super unselfish of him because he could have easily won it − and I'm hoping he wins it the next year. Stevie Mitchell is by far the smartest and the most academically inclined; he works hard and he pushes me for sure to be great.”

That’s another great story: Ighodaro and Mitchell were 2023-24 Academic All-America men's basketball selections this year and were the first Marquette players to be honored since three-time selection Marc Marotta in 1984.

“Me and him – we compete in everything.”

In an era of great change in NCAA athletics, it is kind of remarkable to see someone like Ighodaro put the value, and the effort, into the student side of student-athlete.

NPR said students are "still scarred by their 'stunted and weird' freshman experience," meeting their classmates over Zoom, but Ighodaro remarked cheerily that he met his girlfriend in classes.

But let's never forget what this generation of students had to endure, from those anxious moments and months when the world shut down, and let's celebrate the non-sports wins: getting through school and getting a degree.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Oso Ighodaro’s scholar award at Marquette impressive given pandemic