Thomas Dziagwa Made An Insane Amount of Shots in One Summer

Thomas Dziagwa made more shots this summer than most folks — yes, myself included — might ever make in a lifetime.

The rising junior from Florida said this week that head coach Mike Boynton challenged him to make 25,000 shots this summer, and he met that mark. But it wasn’t easy, he says.

“25,000 makes is definitely a lot of makes,” he said. “It was a good challenge because he knows I’m capable of doing it so, it was like a friendly reminder that I just have to stay in the gym and beat that goal.

“It was a constant reminder that after summer classes or workouts, that I had to get extra shots up and then come back late at night and get more shots up. So, it was definitely a constant reminder every day. Commitment to excellence, if you had to give an example, it would be to make 25,000 shots. So, I guess coach just used me as an example to show the community and our team what the commitment to excellence is.”

Commitment to excellence is OSU’s mantra for the season, which has earned a popular #C2E hashtag on Twitter. Last year, it was the “Let’s Work” mindset in Year 1 under Boynton that gathered traction.

Dziagwa is one of three team captains — along with Cam McGriff and Lindy Waters — for the 2018-19 season, and expectations for him have never been higher. A year removed from averaging 4.9 points, 1.2 rebounds and 10.1 minutes per game, he’s the third-leading returning scorer for the Pokes and is in line for an increased workload this season.