Brandon Averette bringing Cowboys a spark with his effort
Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton was an assistant coach under Brad Underwood at Stephen F. Austin when Boynton first started recruiting Brandon Averette.
That’s when Boynton began hearing the stories about the point guard from Richardson, Texas.
“If you talk to people in the area he grew up in, they’ll tell you, he’s got legendary status in terms of a guy who just outworks people,” Boynton said. “He’s always had tremendous work ethic.”
The 5-foot-11 sophomore point guard is a spark plug of energy, which is a big reason why he found himself in the starting lineup for the first time all season on Saturday against Texas.
He was one of the only bright spots in an otherwise uninspired loss at Kansas State last week.
And his effort — whether he starts or comes off the bench — will be vital to the Cowboys
on Monday night at Baylor, a game that tips off at 8 on ESPNU.
Averette is particularly important on defense, which was valuable in guarding Texas’ Matt Coleman. And his defensive toughness permeates through the team.
“My energy came from him,” OSU guard Tavarius Shine said, pointing to Averette during Saturday’s postgame news conference. “He was up on the ball, so when I see him getting all up on the ballhandler, that gives me the energy to lock down my guy over on the
wing.”
Whether he’s starting or coming off the bench, Averette feels it’s part of his job to be a defensive leader.
“I just try to set the tone,” Averette said. “The point guard position, you set the tone defensively by pressuring the ball, so that’s what I try to do.”
Effort has never been a question mark when it came to Averette.
“No one in our program works harder. Nobody,” Boynton said. “Nobody spends more time in the gym working on their game than Brandon Averette does.
“It’s the reason he has success. There’s no secrets in this thing. In
basketball or life, you get out of it what you put in. And it’s something he had long before he came here.”
The team had a few visitors from different eras of OSU basketball over the weekend who provided a needed message about Cowboy basketball, Boynton said.
Former Cowboys Joey Graham, Byron Eaton and Jamaal Brown visited with the team at different times before the Texas game.
“Having those guys around as I continue to preach what this program means and what it’s about, and to have those guys who lived it and did it the way I like to hope to be able to do it — with
toughness, with defense, unselfishness and discipline — really kind of validated it for our guys,” Boynton said. “For our guys to talk to them and hear some of the same things, knowing the success they had wearing those jerseys was a big deal.
“Like a parent, sometimes you tell your kids something, and then someone else says it to them and they start listening ... Sometimes, someone else saying the same things gives it a little more validation. I think those guys, because of the success they had here, specifically here at Oklahoma State, resonated a little bit more with them.”