For Charles Oliver, it's always about basketball

by Chris Cappella

You couldn’t help but laugh.

There was 10:55 left in last Saturday’s NEC showdown against Wagner when Kavon Stewart led a fast break, turned around, and dished it to Chuck Oliver. Oliver launched a three from the wing that was short, but that didn’t stop the ball from clanking the rim, the top of the backboard, and through the net.

I turned to my broadcast partner on press row and smiled. Oliver smiled. When things are going right, the ball has a tendency to find the bottom of the net, and things are finally going right for Oliver.

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Charles “Chuck” Oliver grew up in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Oliver said by the time he was nine and playing AAU ball at a competitive level, he knew basketball was his passion.

“When I first traveled to nationals for AAU I was nine years old and that’s when I knew it was serious,” he said. “Back then I played against Austin Rivers, Brandon Knight, and they’re all in the NBA. The level of competition was crazy and that’s when I knew it was something I wanted to do.”

Playing and observing great players didn’t stop at the AAU level. Oliver grew up in a neighborhood rich of basketball talent. He has played with Sterling Gibbs (Seton Hall), Myles Mack (Rutgers), Kyle Anderson (UCLA), and Dez Hubert (North Carolina) just to name a few. Also from Scotch Plains is Lance Thomas, Derik Caracter, and Ashton Gibbs, who Oliver calls family.

“Just watching them grow up, that only made me say ‘man I want to play basketball, I want to do what they’re doing’ and drove me even more,” he said.

The influence of basketball didn’t just come from friends in the streets. Hell, Oliver’s younger sister plays at the Division III level and his mother, Sylvia, was an outstanding player at Scotch Plains High School.

Chuck Oliver heads to the rim at OK State (p/c: Michael Wyke)

“She put the ball in my hand and we’re both actually 1,000 point scorers at the same high school, I don’t know if there are many mother-son 1,000 point combinations,” he said. “She played in college too so she knows the game and she coached in high school for six, seven years so she’s seen it from a basketball standpoint too. She’s not just seeing it as a basketball mom hootin and hollering. She doesn’t really hoot and holler, she just sits there, watches the game and will tell me what she thinks, what I can improve on, and things like that. I really value her opinion because I know it’s someone who has been in my situation.”

By the time Oliver was a senior in high school he was averaging 21.8 points per game and Scotch Plains had a 20+ win season, a rarity for the school. Eventually, it was time for Oliver to announce his future plans and he settled for Rider University, about an hour from his home.

As a freshman at Rider Oliver averaged about seven minutes per game but decided before the season was over he wanted to leave to work on his game. Oliver said that his departure had nothing to do with his relationship with the coaches and players.

“I just wanted the opportunity to really develop my game,” he said. “I had a couple of division I schools looking at me but I honestly didn’t want to sit out a year because I thought I might lose interest. Not so much for the game but already not playing much my freshman year and sitting out another year would be almost two years of not playing basketball and I was trying to play immediately.”

That took the man they called Chuck to Lakeland, Ohio. Ohio is not New Jersey.

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“It was a culture shock for me, I had never been that far from home for that long. I was gone from home four or five months at a time I was getting homesick,” Oliver said.

It wasn’t that Lakeland Junior College was a bad place. Lakeland was a good program and gave Oliver a chance to develop his skills at a competitive level. Still, being away from home can wear a man down, Oliver being no exception.

“I’m real close to my family,” he said.

Homesick or not Oliver got the chance prove to scouts he could seriously ball. Lakeland started off the season slow (“we were a bunch of individuals, not a team”) but got hot to end the year and the team ended up winning the Ohio Community College Athletic Conference. Oliver might not say so, but the team won largely on his back. He led the team in scoring at 19.3 points per game, was conference player of the year (over James Kelly, who plays at Miami), and was NJCAA D-II All American first team.

After one impressive season, Oliver was able to move slightly closer to home at Moon Township.

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It didn’t start pretty for Charles Oliver at Robert Morris. Really, it didn’t start pretty for anyone.

Robert Morris went 3-7 in their first ten games and the defense was atrocious. Head coach Andy Toole was shortening his bench like a madman and Oliver was being pressed for minutes.

“I went through a little slump there where I wasn’t shooting well,” he said.

Indeed. Oliver went through a four game stretch late in November into December when he shot 0-11 from the field and was only playing six minutes a game. Things started to turn around for him when he put more of an emphasis on his preparation for practices and games.

“I’d go in the coaches office daily and watch film not just of games but of practice to have a better practice and better games. Also, having more energy and being more urgent in practice, playing with a sense of urgency,” he said.

The dividends immediately paid off. Since the Toledo game, where Oliver saw a season low three minutes, he has shot 51 percent from three in 15 minutes per game. Oliver also added he feels more comfortable with his role on the team.

“I’m still learning my way game by game. I’m more comfortable now that we’re into conference play but early on in the season I was just trying to find my way, my niche, where I could help this team out and put us in a position to win ball games,” he said.

Oliver said he knows his role is to come off the bench and provide some energy and a scoring boost. Oliver doesn’t have any qualms about not starting-- in fact he prefers it.

“It’s basically like before a test looking over a study guide before you take it,” he said

Oliver made clear he’s not just a three point shooter too. He posses a more complete game where he can take it to the hoop and finish. In fact, Oliver’s 80 percent field goal percentage at the rim is highest on the team, according to the site hoop-math.

“There are a lot of shooters who can’t really put the ball on the floor but I can,” he said. “I’m not the most athletic but I know how to be a little crafty in the lane, shoot floaters, or just awkward looking shots sometimes I just get them to fall.”

  

It has been a wild ride for Oliver. From Rider, to Lakeland, and now at Robert Morris, the junior only has one goal everywhere he goes: win.

“That’s what it’s all about. Whichever way I can help the team, that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.