Nigel Hayes-Davis Wins EuroLeague Title, Honors Whitmer Roots in MVP Moment

You know that moment right after an NBA, NFL, or MLB team wins a  championship and the MVP player is comically asked by a reporter what they are going to do next and the player says: “I’m going to Disneyland!”? 

Well, that didn’t happen after Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul became the 2025 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague champion for the second time in club history after outlasing AS Monaco, 70-81, in the 2025 Championship Game at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. Instead, something far better transpired. Forget the theme park in Anaheim.

This response came from the heart. It was honest. It was sincere. It was his moment to let people know just how far he has come.

The MVP Moment: From Toledo to the Top of Europe

Final Four MVP Nigel-Hayes Davis who led Fenerbahce with a team-high 23 points and 9 points suddenly flash backed to his days at Witmer High School in Toledo, Ohio when asked by reporters to sum up what winning a EuroLeague meant to him. 

“I had this speech written down on my phone and practiced it last night,” Hayes-Davis began the interview with the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague broadcast team. 

Hard Work, Not Hype: The Grind That Shaped a Champion

“It makes me a little emotional talking about it. I’ve worked so hard all the time since growing up in high school. My mom knows. I would go to school at 6am and go to work, go to football practice, go back to the gym, and get home at 8 or 9 o’clock at night. I never won a state championship. I lost my state championship in high school. I wasn’t a McDonald’s All-American. I didn’t win Mr. Basketball.”

Undrafted. Underestimated. Unbelievable.

Nigel Hayes-Davis is on top of the world now with Fenerbahce becoming the eighth team in the modern EuroLeague to win the trophy twice ( 2017). But it’s all of the long unseen hours of practicing, getting shots up, and gym time that fueled the former Wisconson Badgers' fire to go further and to be more. Nigel just kept going.

“I was in the gym at 5am, and then I’m lifting by 7am, and working and working. On Saturday night with the number one party school in the country, I’m in the gym until 10 o’clock at night. I wasn’t a Naismith Player of the Year. I lost in the national championship game – again – and kept working,” Hayes-Davis continued with his basketball stops reading like a Rand McNally road atlas.

From Undrafted to Unstoppable: Hayes-Davis' Global Journey

First there was a NBA G-League stint with the New York Knicks affiliate in Westchester, New York before seeing time in the Association with Los Angeles Lakers, Toronto Raptors (coupled with another trip to the G-League with the Raptors 905 in Mississauga, Canada), the Sacramento Kings, and NBA Summer League with the Los Angeles Clippers before venturing to play professionally abroad: Istanbul, Turkey with Galatasaray, Zalgiris in Kaunas, Lithuania, and then over to Spain with Barcelona (his self-proclaimed “worst year in basketball”) before signing with Fenerbahce in 2022.

Records, Redemption, and the Road to Fenerbahce

A fan favorite, the 6’8 power forward holds the record for the most points scored in a EuroLeague game with 50 points against Alba Berlin during the 2023-24 season. 

It always comes back to hard work for the Final Four MVP and EuroLeague champion. 

“I kept working. I went undrafted and just kept working. And then I went overseas, and growing up in America your dream is to play in the NBA and when that doesn’t happen you just have to keep working.”

In Instanbul, a massive championship parade took place with tens of thousands of fans cheering on their team and their MVP in the streets. Hayes-Davis is used to hearing those applause all the way back in Ohio where he returned two years ago to Whitmer High School to announce the creation of a fund named in honor of his mother– the Talaya Davis Panther Fund – and aimed at assisting Whitmer students that need further financial assistance. 

He may not have won a championship for the Panthers, but he’s always been considered a champion. 

“Now I’ve won it,” Hayes-Davis said proudly while reflecting on winning the EuroLeague title. 

“Now I’m the best. My hard work paid off.”