Freshman guard Jonathan Powell has found his role with the West Virginia basketball program.
Powell is averaging 9.3 points and 2.1 rebounds while shooting 41-percent from the field and 38.6-percent from three and hasn’t resembled anything like a true freshman in the process. He’s averaging the fourth most points per game on the team and becoming an integral piece all around.
“From the moment he walked on campus, he was pretty confident. He doesn’t have a mental block from shooting threes right now. If anything, I think he’s growing in confidence every single day,” head coach Darian DeVries said.
Even earlier in the season when Powell went through a mini-shooting slump going 1-12 from three during the Battle 4 Atlantis he never let it affect him in any other aspect of the game. That approach, along with learning how to slow himself down, has led to Powell hitting 19-42 from deep since that point.
“He was trying to hit five threes on one shot, and now he's done a much better job the last couple weeks of like we've talked to him ‘you're 6-foot-6. Just slow down and shoot it like you're playing horse, and if they block it, it's gonna go out of bounds. It's still gonna be our ball, and I think he's done a nice job with that,” DeVries said.
And it’s easy to forget that Powell almost didn’t even make his way to Morgantown after initially signing with Xavier. But after requesting his release the Mountaineers quickly got involved.
The first-team all-Ohio selection averaged 19.1 points per game last season in high school and was the second-leading scorer in the Greater Western Ohio Conference. But it was his ability to shoot that helped him get onto the floor early in his career but he has continued to develop in other areas.
One is with his confidence. That started to grow further during the summer and it’s only continued to build throughout the season in all areas.
“It just grows every game. I mean, they all trust and believe in me, so that's what really plays a part in that, is my confidence, just keep shooting,” Powell said.
And if he keeps hitting them at this rate, nobody is going to tell him to stop.
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