Our team last year consisted of 8 active scholarship players: 5 freshmen, 2 juniors, 2 sophomores, 1 senior ( my roommate, Bryson Barnes, was another freshman on our roster but he redshirted). We were one of the only teams in the country to have 5 freshmen averaging 20+ minutes per game. In our second game of the season, we drove 30 miles down the road to face the Clemson Tigers of the ACC. We knew that last years team with 4 seniors had gone on the road beaten an eventual sweet sixteen team in Vanderbilt. We also knew that Clemson was supposed to be really good this year returning most of their players that were responsible for their 18-0 (or whatever it was) start last year.

I can honestly say that when I stepped onto the court for warmups and saw them getting ready for the game I was not afraid at all. Once again this surprised me, but I think this newfound confidence was because there was way less pressure on me to perform than there was in high school. In high school I was the focal point of our team and I had signed with Furman before our season even started so alot was expected of me. I guess I felt alot less pressure because with Furman I was not expected to do as much and being on a freshmen filled mid-major team means the pressure is all on the hyped up ACC team. Stepping on the court I really thought that our team which had alot of good shooters could hang with Clemson despite their size and speed.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first 7 minutes of that game. We went down 17-0. Clemson put on their full court press with NBA prospect James Mays guarding the ball and KC Rivers and Demontez Stitt ready to join Mays to trap the first pass. We turned the ball over 37 times that game which ended up being a record. The game was never in reach after that. Late in the first half I froze up on an inbounds play and was late to receive a pass resulting in the ball being tipped off my hands and almost going out of bounds. I barely beat a Clemson player to the ball he bumped me causing me to lose my balance and fall out of bounds. The ref kindly called the foul and I went to the line to shoot a 1-and-1. Free throws were kind of my thing in high school (I once made 3 in a row when we were down by 2 with 3.6 seconds on the clock to win a game). I shot 59 freaking percent this year but at Clemson I managed to go 2 for 2. About 7 or 8 of my friends from high school came up for the game and of course I was embarrassed we almost got our score doubled but they were just proud to see me out on the court and that I got in the books.