Former Stony Brook and Miami basketball player Elijah Olaniyi has died after a battle with brain cancer. He was 26 years old.
Olaniyi spent three years with Stony Brook, transferred to Miami for one season and finished his college career with the Seawolves in 2021-22. He twice earned All-AEC honors and was the league’s Rookie of the Year in 2017-18 after being lightly recruited out of Newark, New Jersey.
A diagnosis of brain cancer in November 2023 effectively ended Olaniyi’s professional pursuits as a basketball player overseas after a long and productive college career. He underwent three surgeries the following month to remove 95% of the tumor in his brain, he told The Statesman early in 2024, but biopsy results came back that it was cancerous.
He began radiation and chemotherapy treatments weeks later.
Olaniyi later learned from his doctors that during the 2021-22 season, his last with Stony Brook, struggles with his mental health and seizures were symptoms of being undiagnosed with a brain tumor. From The Statesman:
As doctors found out recently, Olaniyi has had brain cancer since his final year of college, when his mental health was derailing the end of what was once a storied Stony Brook career.
Doctors have linked Olaniyi’s behavior and symptoms during the 2021-22 season to his tumor and its placement on his brain. Aside from irregular emotional behavior, one of the side effects of the cancer that he exhibited was seizures.
“I remember waking up with a nosebleed,” Olaniyi said. “Now, I’m getting the information that I was actually having a seizure. And then right after, I had to go to practice.”
After his illustrious college career, Olaniyi is widely regarded as one of the most productive players in the history of the Stony Brook program, his name mentioned across the record books. He is ninth on the program’s all-time scoring list, seventh in steals and 10th in total rebounds.
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