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After team voted to reinstate Watkins, big man seizes second chance

As part of a three-man committee seeking to replace All-Big 12 forward Devin Williams, senior Brandon Watkins is averaging a career-best 14 minutes, 6.9 points and 4.9 rebounds per game.

 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. —  The mononucleosis that sapped his stamina as a sophomore. The knee that throbbed as a junior. Both curbed Brandon Watkins’ development, his drive and his playing time.

Yet last May, when the 6-foot-9 forward stepped away from West Virginia’s basketball team, assistant coach Erik Martin cared only to confront the obstacles in Watkins’ head.

“Son, your basketball life has about 365 days left in it,” Martin told Watkins. “If you can’t stay focused for one year, the last year of your basketball life, then I’ve overrated your competitiveness and your intelligence.”

As Watkins mulled a transfer, his uncle and WVU Hall-of-Famer Warren Baker pledged to support whatever decision arose. Baker’s only request — that Watkins “think long and hard before he went somewhere else.”

Ultimately he chose to stay, though the decision wasn’t his alone. Coach Bob Huggins, having imposed the “little vacation” to test Watkins’ commitment, left the reinstatement up to a team vote. The other Mountaineers decided unanimously to welcome back Watkins, which might sound warmly sentimental aside from the practical point of the story.

“I think those guys were like, ‘We could bring in some new player and he could be worse than Brandon. At least we can deal with Brandon because he knows us, we know him and he knows the system.’”

*****

West Virginia fans remember the freshman Watkins breaking out for 12 points and 11 rebounds as MVP of the Capital Classic in December 2013. The following season came his most complete performance, 14 points and nine rebounds that saved WVU during an uninspired 76-72 win over Kansas State.

Equally vivid, however, were TV cameras capturing Watkins flipping the double-bird at Texas Tech players before a shoving match in January 2015. It wasn’t his first lapse in self-control.

“He’s had his incidents — that’s just one that was caught on film,” said Martin. “His temper would get squirrelly, especially if the game got real physical.

“There were times I just told him, man, grow up. If people know they can get under your skin, the scouting report is going to say ‘be physical with him,’ knowing they can make him lose his head.”

Watkins’ career rate of 10.4 fouls per 100 possessions is by far the highest among West Virginia’s scholarship players. Through eight games as a senior, he’s averaging only 4.1 fouls.

Some of that newfound self-discipline surfaced in the offseason when Watkins joined a team of U.S. collegians touring Germany and the Netherlands. Albeit a brief, low-profile trip lacking many big-name players, Martin hoped Watkins could toughen up mentally from playing against rugged European pros.

“The coach told me there was an incident over there where the old Brandon would’ve blown up,” Martin said. “But this time he handled it like a grownup.”

*****

Monday night Watkins gave 17 spirited minutes in a 90-55 drubbing of VMI. He finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds for his second career double-double, nearly three full years having elapsed since his first.

“We need him,” said guard Daxter Miles.

After the game, Huggins recalled how dubious the future seemed last summer, how Watkins “needed to decide if this is what you really want to do.” At that juncture the lanky big man had played double-digit minutes only 10 times during the previous two seasons — slowed by illness and the ACL injury.

“I wasn’t ready last year,” Watkins said. “I couldn’t come off the bench and just play because my knee would be killing me.”

Yet Baker acknowledged his nephew hadn’t dedicated himself to improving his game and earning the coaches’ trust. “With Huggs, if you don’t bring it every day you’re not going to see the playing time you’d like,” he said.

Numerous transfer opportunities existed within driving distance of Watkins’ high school in Decatur, Ga., and he considered seeking a final-season reboot elsewhere. While Huggins credits Baker’s counseling for making an impression, Baker insists he used a light-touch approach.

“The worst thing would have been for Brandon to have a subpar year and say ‘I wouldn’t have been here if my uncle hadn’t talked me into it.’ So the last thing I wanted him to do was stay here based on me telling him something,” Baker said.

“But he’s got extended family here. He started coming to my basketball camp here when he was 5 years old, so he’s known Morgantown practically all his life. There’s so many people who have been good to him since he’s been here, and most of them knew him before he even committed to come to West Virginia.”

*****

The extra time Watkins and roommate Elijah Macon spend in the practice facility is apparent from the music cranking at max-volume during their workouts. It rattles and hums throughout the coaches’ upstairs offices, though Martin will suffer the annoyance in exchange for his big men improving.

He wonders what if Watkins had taken the game this seriously three years ago, but realizes not every player can be so consumed as Kevin Jones. Intent on fixing what he can now, Martin set out to make Watkins’ final chance count — setting up daily conversations and even evaluating his own coaching style.

“I told Brandon, ‘Part of the reason you’re like that is on Coach Martin. Maybe I didn’t spend time taking you under my wing.’ Because we always had Devin Williams playing so many minutes before, maybe I said, ‘We don’t really need you.’

“Now if somebody said that to me, it would have motivated the heck out of me, but Brandon’s not cut from the same cloth.”

Watching closely again this season is the uncle whose 54 double-doubles highlighted a WVU career some four decades ago. Baker recognizes how Watkins must join Macon and Sagaba Konate in the middle to fortify the Mountaineers through the grind of the Big 12 round-robin.

“Brandon still has his moments of lacking confidence, but for the most part he’s been much better,” Baker said. “I think he finally realized what he has to do to make it.”





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