West Virginia University freshman Powell ready for Big 12 basketball
MORGANTOWN — As West Virginia moves into the heart of its Big 12 season with the eyes of the nation now squarely focused on this team coach Darian DeVries has patched together, it is time for a moment to move one’s own focus from the heroics of Javon Small and the injury to Tucker DeVries that has him out indefinitely, to a freshman who has come out of nowhere to give the Mountaineers a much needed scoring punch.
Jonathan Powell had to endure the indignities that come with a freshman trying to find his varsity legs but with the backing of the coach and the staff, who believed in his talent and work ethic, Powell has become a force that opponents have to respect as he has moved into DeVries spot in the starting lineup.
You kind of sensed that this was going to be a special player on opening day for WVU as DeVries had him on the floor for 21 minutes — more than half the game — and in his debut he had 11 points on 4 of 8 shooting from the floor, 3 of 7 of them from 3-point range.
The first four games screamed out loudly that this was a player to watch as he reached double figures in each, scoring 48 points in total for a 12.0 average. He canned 18 of 37 shots, one miss shy of 50%.
And if you were worried about a big stage scaring him, well, as the Mountaineers were pushed around at Pitt, he played 29 minutes and scored 16 points, hitting half of his 12 shots and 4 of 10 of them from 3-point range.
He was playing well enough to make you forget he was a freshman, but then came the trip to the Bahamas and reality sometimes is a cruel teacher. In three games against No. 3 Gonzaga, Louisville and Arizona, he scored just 5 points on 1 of 13 shooting from the floor.
And when he followed that up returning home against Georgetown with 3 points on 1 of 4 shooting, you were wondering if the aura of big-time college basketball had caught up with him. He had made just 2 of 18 shots but DeVries held firm through it all that Powell was a player who would live up to his potential and was just going through some growing pains.
“It’s just part of growing,” DeVries said then. It’s part of basketball. Everyone is going to have rough nights. He brings value outside of just making shots. We’re going to need him going forward. He’s a really good shooter. In basketball, you are going to have a two-or-three-game stretch where they just don’t go in.
“The big thing for a young player is not to get caught up in whether you are making shots or not,” coach DeVries said. “He needed that talk. He continued to stay involved, to give us great effort. He just missed. He’s a good shooter. He’ll put in the work. The work always pays off.”
At that time I noted that another first-year player, Jerry West, who debuted as a sophomore since freshmen weren’t eligible then, scored 47 points in his first four games while Powell had scored 48 in his first four games.
We all know what happened with West from there and over the last five games the hard work has paid off for Powell who has hit 23 of his last 50 shots and scored 65 points, which is 13 per game.
A 6-foot-6 guard from Centerville, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton, Powell has moved his way into the starting lineup due to the injury that has sidelined Tucker DeVries, the coach’s son, and hasn’t blinked at the promotion.
“It’s really no difference,” Powell said. “I come in the game and do my job, play my hardest and do what I need to help my team win.”
It’s as simple as that to the unflappable 3-point shooter.
“I can shoot a little bit, so that helps me,” Powell said, quite modestly. “Just knowing the game and what I need to do and my work ethic kind of leads me to put me in the position I’m in.”
Last time out, against Oklahoma State, he matched his season high with 17 points, making him the only other Mountaineer to crack double figures other than Javon Small, who led the way with 24.
Had DeVries pictured this freshman who was coming off the bench as his No. 2 scorer?
“I don’t know if we thought he’d be our second-best scorer, but from the moment he walked on campus, he was pretty confident,” DeVries said, about to offer up a rather telling view of Powell. “He doesn’t have a mental block shooting 3s. If anything, he’s growing in confidence every day.”
Over the last five games his 3-point sniping has been dead on, hitting 18 of 39 attempts for a stunning 46.2%.
The result is that teams can’t get too tricky on Small, as evidenced in the OSU victory when they tried doubling on him only to have Powell burn them with 5 of 7 from 3-point range.
And what has allowed Powell to regain his touch after his slump?
Growing up.
“What he’s done a really good job of is learning to slow himself down,” DeVries stressed. “That’s true of a lot of freshmen. Even when he was making some early in the year, some of the inconsistencies like in the Bahamas when he struggled a little bit, he was just a little rushed. He was trying to hit five threes on one shot.”
Now he’s satisfied with averaging about two-and-a-half 3s on every five shots.
“He’s done a much better job the last couple of weeks. We talk to him about how ‘you’re 6-6, slow down and shoot it like you’re playing H-O-R-S-E. If they block it, it’s going to go out of bounds and still be our ball. He’s done a nice job of that.”
Meanwhile, he’s getting ready to play at home against Arizona at 7 p.m. tonight in what now is turning into a key conference showdown before going west to Colorado and Houston for a couple of games.