Completed Event: Men's Basketball at Baylor on October 10, 2025 , Loss , 74, to, 79
M Basketball
at Baylor
L 74-79
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Grand Canyon University Athletics
Coro: Turning point lit Midtgaard's flame at 14
3/11/2021 11:30:00 AM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro
Denmark club coach feared GCU's star was ready to quit basketball
Nemanja Jovanovic walked into the tiny gymnasium that housed the lowest-level team for the Danish club team that he headed.
With wooden backboards attached to brick walls and the court full of skinny teenagers, the giant who Jovanovic came to see stood out like a castle on the boy's hometown Helsingør waterfront.
It was Asbjørn Midtgaard, the hulking 7-foot Grand Canyon star who has led the Lopes to the No. 1 seed in this week's WAC Tournament. And basketball was about to become another passing fancy, like his dalliances with gymnastics, swimming, soccer and handball in his first 13 years.
"He basically couldn't hold the ball," Jovanovic recalled of his first visit to Midtgaard. "His confidence was so low. He was just running from side to side. He wouldn't even catch the ball, like 'Don't throw it to me.' "
Midtgaard's coach for the B club in Hørsholm, an hour away from his home, called Jovanovic, a fellow Serbian and the club's highest-level coach, because he feared that Midtgaard might quit and waste his potential.
"I played on the A team for a couple practices and they just beat me up," Midtgaard said. "In that sense, I was like, 'I don't want to do this. I don't want to be beaten up every day.' That's not fun. I had fun on the B team."
Since the time he was born at 24 inches and 12 pounds with 4% body fat, Midtgaard has been built differently and looked at differently than the children around him.
"In the days after he was born, suddenly people came into the hospital room, not because I was the one they wanted to see," Midtgaard's mother, Ann-Marie, said. "The one cleaning the room got more and more near his crib. After a couple days, I pulled back the cover and said, 'Do you want to look now?' "
Height is common in Denmark, but basketball has not been until a recent surge in the nation where handball was invented and remains a favorite. His length came from the side of Ann-Marie, a nurse who is 6 feet 3 inches, and his strength came from his father, Christian, a mechanical engineer who was a sailor and powerlifter.
Because of Midtgaard's size, sports like judo set him up for failure because he was three years younger than people in his weight group. When a sport was organized by age, he drew quizzical stares.
"He just felt wrong in his big-sized body, being around all those small boys and the parents looking at him were seeing something strange with him looking so different than the others," Christian said. "He just wanted to have a break. Instead of staying home and only playing PlayStation, I took him training."
Step by step, a basketball player was unknowingly being built by parents who knew little of the sport. Midtgaard understood court spacing from handball. He grew coordinated from judo, fluid from gymnastics and strong from lifting weights.
He found basketball as the tall guy with friends who played the sport. Suddenly, he fit in. Like the hospital room, his parents were popular with onlookers once again.
"He got a lot of attention, but in a positive way now," Ann-Marie said. "They wanted to find out if could develop. That was the most fantastic thing for Asbjørn."
Jovanovic, now the SMU director of player development, told Midtgaard that his goal was to make him a pro and came weekly to work personally with him.
His first goals were to make the game fun for Midtgaard and build his confidence.
"Asbjørn, you're so big and strong that if we give you the ball, we can score," Jovanovic told him.
"OK, I'll try," Midtgaard replied.
As his skills grew, Midtgaard was on the club's A team again and playing at Denmark's highest level. He traveled with an international club to play in a Philadelphia tournament, where then-Wichita State assistant coach Kyle Lindsted spotted him and recruited him to the Shockers.
Lindsted left for Minnesota after Midtgaard's freshman season and Midtgaard lost his best advocate since Jovanovic, setting up last summer's graduate transfer to GCU for a bigger role and better support that matched his drive.
"I owe my work ethic and my passion for the game to Nemanja," Midtgaard said. "He started my journey. He wrote the first chapter for me. It's my passion now. It's what I love. There was a lot of patience. A lot of ups and downs. In the end, it paid off. Of course, we're not done yet."
With hustle and muscle, Midtgaard leads the nation with 71.5% shooting and broke a 42-year-old WAC record for conference shooting. He is one of 18 players in the nation with at least 11 double-doubles, averaging one for the season at a team-high 14.3 points and 10.4 rebounds per game.
"We always saw the potential, as all the coaches had during all those years," Christian said. "We always hear that it was there in practices and he was always mentioned in offseason training. We somehow knew it was. The relationship that he has now with these GCU coaches is very special.
"He's just showing now what he could do. Here, he's allowed to make mistakes and that's the biggest different because that's what people grow on."
The mistakes are few, as Midtgaard has become a leader on the team, a friend to all and a reliable performer. The conference's Newcomer of the Year enters the WAC Tournament semifinals on Friday night with six double-doubles in his past seven games.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ann-Marie and Christian have been unable to come to Phoenix but they had cutouts of themselves made to be place behind the GCU bench for his Senior Night last week.
"Every time we talk to Asbjørn, he's happy," Ann-Marie said. "He feels that everyone there has welcomed him and taken him in as a family member. He feels comfortable. When you feel that, you're growing in everything that you take part in."
With wooden backboards attached to brick walls and the court full of skinny teenagers, the giant who Jovanovic came to see stood out like a castle on the boy's hometown Helsingør waterfront.
It was Asbjørn Midtgaard, the hulking 7-foot Grand Canyon star who has led the Lopes to the No. 1 seed in this week's WAC Tournament. And basketball was about to become another passing fancy, like his dalliances with gymnastics, swimming, soccer and handball in his first 13 years.
"He basically couldn't hold the ball," Jovanovic recalled of his first visit to Midtgaard. "His confidence was so low. He was just running from side to side. He wouldn't even catch the ball, like 'Don't throw it to me.' "
Midtgaard's coach for the B club in Hørsholm, an hour away from his home, called Jovanovic, a fellow Serbian and the club's highest-level coach, because he feared that Midtgaard might quit and waste his potential.
"I played on the A team for a couple practices and they just beat me up," Midtgaard said. "In that sense, I was like, 'I don't want to do this. I don't want to be beaten up every day.' That's not fun. I had fun on the B team."
Since the time he was born at 24 inches and 12 pounds with 4% body fat, Midtgaard has been built differently and looked at differently than the children around him."In the days after he was born, suddenly people came into the hospital room, not because I was the one they wanted to see," Midtgaard's mother, Ann-Marie, said. "The one cleaning the room got more and more near his crib. After a couple days, I pulled back the cover and said, 'Do you want to look now?' "
Height is common in Denmark, but basketball has not been until a recent surge in the nation where handball was invented and remains a favorite. His length came from the side of Ann-Marie, a nurse who is 6 feet 3 inches, and his strength came from his father, Christian, a mechanical engineer who was a sailor and powerlifter.
Because of Midtgaard's size, sports like judo set him up for failure because he was three years younger than people in his weight group. When a sport was organized by age, he drew quizzical stares.
"He just felt wrong in his big-sized body, being around all those small boys and the parents looking at him were seeing something strange with him looking so different than the others," Christian said. "He just wanted to have a break. Instead of staying home and only playing PlayStation, I took him training."
Step by step, a basketball player was unknowingly being built by parents who knew little of the sport. Midtgaard understood court spacing from handball. He grew coordinated from judo, fluid from gymnastics and strong from lifting weights.He found basketball as the tall guy with friends who played the sport. Suddenly, he fit in. Like the hospital room, his parents were popular with onlookers once again.
"He got a lot of attention, but in a positive way now," Ann-Marie said. "They wanted to find out if could develop. That was the most fantastic thing for Asbjørn."
Jovanovic, now the SMU director of player development, told Midtgaard that his goal was to make him a pro and came weekly to work personally with him.His first goals were to make the game fun for Midtgaard and build his confidence.
"Asbjørn, you're so big and strong that if we give you the ball, we can score," Jovanovic told him.
"OK, I'll try," Midtgaard replied.
As his skills grew, Midtgaard was on the club's A team again and playing at Denmark's highest level. He traveled with an international club to play in a Philadelphia tournament, where then-Wichita State assistant coach Kyle Lindsted spotted him and recruited him to the Shockers.Lindsted left for Minnesota after Midtgaard's freshman season and Midtgaard lost his best advocate since Jovanovic, setting up last summer's graduate transfer to GCU for a bigger role and better support that matched his drive.
"I owe my work ethic and my passion for the game to Nemanja," Midtgaard said. "He started my journey. He wrote the first chapter for me. It's my passion now. It's what I love. There was a lot of patience. A lot of ups and downs. In the end, it paid off. Of course, we're not done yet."
With hustle and muscle, Midtgaard leads the nation with 71.5% shooting and broke a 42-year-old WAC record for conference shooting. He is one of 18 players in the nation with at least 11 double-doubles, averaging one for the season at a team-high 14.3 points and 10.4 rebounds per game."We always saw the potential, as all the coaches had during all those years," Christian said. "We always hear that it was there in practices and he was always mentioned in offseason training. We somehow knew it was. The relationship that he has now with these GCU coaches is very special.
"He's just showing now what he could do. Here, he's allowed to make mistakes and that's the biggest different because that's what people grow on."
The mistakes are few, as Midtgaard has become a leader on the team, a friend to all and a reliable performer. The conference's Newcomer of the Year enters the WAC Tournament semifinals on Friday night with six double-doubles in his past seven games.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ann-Marie and Christian have been unable to come to Phoenix but they had cutouts of themselves made to be place behind the GCU bench for his Senior Night last week."Every time we talk to Asbjørn, he's happy," Ann-Marie said. "He feels that everyone there has welcomed him and taken him in as a family member. He feels comfortable. When you feel that, you're growing in everything that you take part in."
Players Mentioned
C
/ Men's BasketballMidnight Madness 2025
Monday, October 06
Makaih Williams | Media Availability | 9.3.25
Thursday, September 04
Dusty Stromer | Media Availability | 9.3.25
Thursday, September 04
Kaleb Smith | Media Availability | 9.3.25
Thursday, September 04