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Gabe Olaseni has some time on his hands.

Then again, all professional athletes do.

The former Iowa basketball player now resides in Istanbul, Turkey, playing professionally for Bursaspor Basketbol.

Bursaspor was off to an 11-12 record and Olaseni was having yet another solid year (11 points and 8.7 rebounds per game) when competition halted because of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

“It was difficult,” Olaseni said of the pause in play. “We kept up-to-date on everything with neighboring countries like Spain and Italy, so we knew it was a possibility that games could be canceled. I think we just all prepared for that to happen. A lot of our American players returned home.”

Olaseni, originally from London, England, isn’t too far from home. He, along with his family, are staying healthy.

He opted to stay quarantined in Turkey, however, killing time with Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and binging plenty of 'Punisher' on Netflix. Olaseni added that he’s not someone who typically goes out and does anything “crazy,” so quarantine life hasn’t been too hectic.

“I’m doing what everyone else is doing, really: trying to stay in shape at home, lot of video games, a lot of Netflix, trying not to get too out of shape in case in two or three weeks, they say we’re getting back to things,” he said.

Olaseni and his teammates first started hearing rumblings about their season’s hiatus about a month ago. He said one of his former teammates is in China, and once his season was put on hold, the dominoes began to fall.

"You can see it coming, unfortunately, but we’ve kept on trying to be professional, continue to play,” he said. “At the same time, you realize it’s basketball. This is life or death. It made sense.”

After graduating from Iowa in 2015, Olaseni spent time with the Miami Heat summer league team. Since then, he’s played professionally in Europe, residing in Germany, Italy, Spain, Germany once more, and now Turkey.

“I love it. I’m from Europe, so it’s not really a big adjustment for me when I do have to go to different countries,” Olaseni said. “It’s really good -- the community, the people. The food is great. No real complaints there. I think you can drop me anywhere and I’ll be able to survive, but this has definitely been a great experience.”

Despite being in a time zone eight hours ahead of central time, Olaseni said he does his best to keep up with Iowa basketball, whether that’s catching highlights on social media or seeing a condensed game. He still keeps up with some of his former teammates and coaches — Olaseni said Fran McCaffery called him about a month or two ago to catch up.

But for this upcoming Iowa season, Olaseni has an Iowa connection closer to home.

Incoming freshman Josh Ogundele is from London, just like Olaseni, and when the then-high school senior released his list of top five college choices, Olaseni reached out.

He offered his expertise, as someone who’d been in Ogundele’s shoes not so long ago. Ogundele did have one question, asking Olaseni if McCaffery was really as “crazy” as others thought.

Ironically, that was a similar question to what Olaseni asked to players like Roy Devyn Marble and Melsahn Basabe when he was looking at Iowa.

“(McCaffery) only gets mad when you don’t do stuff you’ve done multiple times,” Olaseni said. “I’m sure if (Ogundele) goes there and doesn’t finish around the rim, rebound, or play good defense like we’ve all seen him do, then Fran may get on him a little bit. But it’s more for the guys who’ve been there for longer, junior, seniors. He just expects that.

“The main thing I told him — when he stops shouting at you, that’s when you should be worried, because he doesn’t care. I’m happy to say he shouted at me for probably every day for four years.”

It’s not too common for a college basketball team to have two players from East London on its roster in the span of seven years. And it’s even more of a reason for Olaseni to tune in for more games.

“I think I’ll watch a little closer now that there’s another lad on the team,” he joked.