NEW YORK — Until last week, Semi Ojeleye had not appeared in a game for nearly two years and even when he played at Duke, the minutes were limited.

Since then, Ojeleye has been putting in the work away from the court and so far it is paying off much to the delight of SMU coach Tim Jankovich.

Ojeleye continued his torrid start by scoring 20 of his 24 points in the second half and SMU defeated Pittsburgh 76-67 in the first semifinal of the 2K Classic at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night.

“Of course, it’s enjoyable when a guy sits out, (is) a transfer and you hope he has success,” Jankovich said. “But I’ll triple that because Semi’s one of the most outstanding young men that you could ever be around your entire life and on top of that he is arguably the hardest worker away from practice time in terms of the time he puts in.

“He’s a machine, literally, and we’re like blown away. We’ve been around a lot of hard-working guys. I have not been around a guy you set your clock by this guy. It’s each and every day and he can’t get enough.”

Ojeleye scored 46 points in 23 games in two seasons with Duke before transferring to the Mustangs following the 2014-15 season. The junior forward surpassed his point total from Duke in the first half when he shot 2 of 7 and then surged past it with several outstanding athletic plays during the second half.

Besides Ojeleye’s impressive showing, Shake Milton added 14 points while Ben Moore contributed 12.

Michael Young scored nearly half of his 22 points at the foul line for Pittsburgh. Jamel Artis added 20 for the Panthers, who had averaged 96 points in home wins over Eastern Michigan and Gardner-Webb.

“He’s athletic,” Young said of Ojeleye. “He can really get up vertically and he can make some shots. We knew that going in.”