Oladipo’s defense, especially on the weak side, creates turnovers and, in turn, easy baskets that have sent his overall shooting percentage skyrocketing, to 61.4 percent from 47.1 last season. An uncompromising work ethic — he spends at least an extra 90 minutes every day practicing his shooting or ball-handling — has produced a refined jump shooter who, according to Hoop-math.com, has converted 50 percent of his 2-point jumpers, up from 24 percent.

“The dude’s always pressuring, always up in your grill,” Sheehey said.

The former Indiana player and coach Dan Dakich was chatting with some of his old teammates recently when the subject turned to Oladipo, and all agreed that they would loathe practicing against him.

“We all think we’re gladiators who survived Coach Knight and all that,” said Dakich, now an analyst for ESPN. “In our little world, that’s a pretty good compliment.”

Oladipo’s little world, until he arrived here in 2010, was his home in a rural pocket of Upper Marlboro, Md., about 20 miles east of Washington, where the family’s closest neighbors are horses and cows. His parents, immigrants from Nigeria who moved to the United States more than 25 years ago, relocated there before high school, attracted by a bigger home in a safer area but also because his father, Chris, enjoyed the seclusion. Oladipo characterized him as “isolated.”

When discussing his mother, Joan, and his three sisters — Kristine, Kendra and his twin, Victoria — Oladipo laughed and cracked jokes. He said that the five of them should star in a television comedy. “What would it be called?” Oladipo said. “The Oladipos, what else?” But when the conversation turned to his relationship with his father, Oladipo shifted in his chair, his voice dropping as he scanned the room.

“It’s kind of rare for me to be moody and stuff like that, but when I am, sometimes I see myself in him,” Oladipo said. “It’s just how he is. He’s always been like that. Growing up, you always want to hang with your dad — go fishing or whatever. But my dad was always working, so we never really had time for that. I think I kind of learned to accept it.”