First-year head coach Rodney Terry gives his players
direction against Cal State San Marcos on Jan. 18.
James Ramirez / The Collegian
For redshirt sophomore Jerry Brown III, it was “a sense of urgency” that triggered his recent surge in production to the Bulldog basketball team.
“The season started off kind of slow because I was a little rusty at first,” Brown said. “Figuring out the new offense, the new plays, how I was going to score. But I stopped worrying about that and just let the game come to me and things have been working themselves out.”
And slowly but surely, things have been working themselves out for the 6-foot-7 Richmond, Calif. native.
Since Dec. 10, Brown has scored in double figures eight times, including a career-high 17 points against Cal State San Marcos on Jan. 18. Brown leads the ‘Dogs in rebounds, averaging 4.9 per game, is fourth in scoring with 8.7 points per game and boasts a team-best 51.7 shooting percentage.
“I’ve just been seeing opportunities to score the ball and help my team, so I’ve just been taking them.” Brown said.
Head coach Rodney Terry said Brown is capitalizing on opportunities on both sides of the ball.
“I think he’s definitely given us the defensive pressure. That’s the one area we’ve asked him to come in and be very assertive for,” Terry said of Brown, who also has 18 blocks and 24 steals this season.
“If you play hard and get lost on defense, the offense part will come easy for you, and I think [Brown] has really picked and chosen good points to be assertive on offense for us,” Terry said.
The ‘Dogs will need to be assertive in Thursday’s road game at Louisiana Tech as they hope to earn their second Western Athletic Conference win. It will be a tough test for the ‘Dogs, who are facing a Louisiana Tech squad that is riding a two-game conference win streak with road wins at Hawaii and San Jose State last week.
The Bayou Bulldogs are led by three-time WAC Player of the Week Raheem Appleby, who averaged 23.5 points per game and shot 60.7 percent from the field last week.
Terry said that they will need to slow down Louisiana Tech if they want to leave Ruston, La. with the win.
“La Tech is a team that really wants to speed you up and play faster.” Terry said at Tuesday’s practice. “We’ve got to do a great job attacking on our terms. We’ve got to take care of the basketball and not beat ourselves. We’ve had a good couple of days in preparation in terms of knowing how hard we have to work and how hard we have to play.”
As for “The Governor,” Brown said he’s ready for the week ahead. “We don’t make excuses. We just go out and play our best.”
