Here’s a question for you: How does a quiet kid from Cameroon, on track to become a priest, end up a fiery NBA champion and one of the most unique All-Stars in the league? It sounds like a work of fiction, right? In what universe can this even be true? Well, turns out it is, because it’s the very real story of Pascal Siakam. When you watch him play in the 2025 finals for Indy now, you see a finished product. You see a star.

But to truly understand Pascal Siakam, you have to forget the player he is today and look at the unbelievable path he took to get here. The journey began in Cameroon, and has now taken him to the verge of an NBA championship.

Which college did Pascal Siakam attend? 

Basketball wasn’t the plan. Growing up in Douala, Cameroon, Pascal’s future seemed set: attending St. Andrew’s Seminary to become a priest. His plan was to follow in the footsteps of his older brothers and his father’s dream. Life was about discipline, faith, and study, not crossovers and jump shots.

Basketball wasn’t even the main focus. But then, a camp run by former NBA player and fellow Cameroonian, Luc Mbah a Moute, changed everything. Mbah a Moute saw a spark, a raw athletic kid with a crazy motor, and became his mentor. At 18 years old, Siakam made the life-altering move to the United States. He bounced around from camp to camp, a basketball nomad just trying to hone his skills, before eventually landing at God’s Academy, a prep school in Texas.

But here’s the thing: he wasn’t some blue-chip recruit with every major college coach blowing up his phone. Far from it. Siakam was described as being “neither widely known nor initially eligible.” He was a project, a ball of clay still waiting to be molded. But one school saw the potential, the diamond in the rough: New Mexico State University. The Aggies’ coach at the time, Marvin Menzies, had built a reputation for finding international talent. He had Siakam on his radar when almost nobody else did.

So, in 2013, Pascal Siakam, the kid from the seminary in Cameroon, enrolled at New Mexico State, ready to start a college career that almost no one saw coming.

Pascal Siakam NCAA stats

Just look at the jump from his first playing year to his second. You can literally see the hard work paying off in the box score. This is where the legend of Spicy P started to take shape, as first showed evidence of his potential. A defensive monster with the ability to contribute to the offense regularly, Siakam did in NCAA what he now does in the NBA.

Pascal Siakam College Career

Siakam’s start at New Mexico State wasn’t exactly a fairytale. He had to redshirt his entire first season, 2013–14, because of an injury. But honestly, looking back, that might have been the best thing that could have happened to him. It gave him a whole year to get stronger, to really adjust to life in a new country, and most importantly, to just soak up the game like a sponge. And when he finally got on the court for the 2014–15 season, you could tell he was ready. He clawed his way into the starting lineup and was so impressive that he was named the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Freshman of the Year.

But it was his sophomore season, the 2015–16 campaign, that he absolutely went nuclear and forced the basketball world to pay attention. He was a walking double-double, putting up monster numbers: 20.3 points, 11.6 rebounds, and 2.2 blocks a game. He was deservedly named the unanimous WAC Player of the Year. It was an incredible season. But what’s wild is that even after all that, some NBA teams still weren’t totally sold on him.

Paul Weir, who was an assistant coach at New Mexico State when Siakam was there, admitted that in college, “Pascal was a limited offensive player.” His whole game was basically built on raw energy and out-hustling everyone. He only shot 15 three-pointers his entire sophomore year! NBA scouts saw him as a “small college center” whose jumper didn’t really go past 15 feet. They just weren’t sure what to make of him.

But here’s what those scouting reports missed: Siakam’s insane, almost obsessive, hunger to get better. Coach Weir tells this amazing story about Siakam just walking into his office one day and asking to borrow a book about basketball. “I’d give him a 300-page, 400-page textbook on basketball. He’d come back two days later and say ‘Do you have another one?’” Weir recalled. “He was just a very eager kid to be the best he could be.” That’s the kind of fire you just can’t teach. Siakam knew, deep down, that his natural gifts – his crazy motor, his ability to run the floor like a guard, his pure energy – would work in the NBA.

Even Masai Ujiri, the genius president of the Raptors, wasn’t impressed when he first saw Siakam at a Basketball Without Borders camp back in 2012. But then, in 2016, when the Raptors brought Siakam in for a pre-draft workout alongside some guys who were projected to go way higher, Ujiri was apparently blown away by his energy and drive. Still, Siakam said some teams were asking him if he’d be cool with playing overseas for a couple of years – you know, the classic “draft-and-stash” move for a raw international prospect. But Spicy P? Nah, he wasn’t having any of that. He bet on himself, big time.

On April 19, 2016, right after that monster sophomore season, Pascal Siakam declared for the NBA Draft, leaving his last two years of college eligibility on the table. It was a huge gamble for a player a lot of people still saw as a project. But it was a move that showed his unshakable belief in his own work ethic and his own unique path to becoming a star. And looking back now, at the All-Star games, at the championship ring, at that ECF MVP trophy? Yeah, it’s pretty safe to say he made the right call.