North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Patience Pays For Freshman Davis
12/18/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
RALEIGH, N.C. – Josh Davis, NC State's instant energy from the bench, was a patient recruit.
He wanted nothing more during his career at Raleigh's Athens Drive High School than to get a phone call from Wolfpack head coach Sidney Lowe, or another member of the Lowe's staff, asking him to join his favorite basketball team.
Davis grew up just a few miles from campus – somewhere between five-to-seven minutes, depending on the traffic – and he fell in love with the program after attending an NC State-Virginia game at the RBC Center when he was a high school freshman.
"I just always liked the school," Davis said. "It's someplace I always wanted to go."
But, in early March, Davis still did not have an offer on the table, at least not until after Brandon Costner and Trevor Ferguson decided they were not going to return to school. That opened up a grant-in-aid for Lowe to sign the Wolfpack's first scholarship player from Raleigh since Enloe High's Mike Bell arrived in 2000.
Bell redshirted one season, played another, then left for Palm Beach Community College and Florida Atlantic, where he averaged 18.5 points per game in two seasons.
Davis, an athletic 6-7 forward, is one of five freshmen on the Wolfpack's 2009-10 roster, and he's making an impact with his energetic play off the bench. Thursday night, in a 79-76 win over Elon, Davis made one of the game's biggest plays, when he stole the ball at midcourt and cruised in for an uncontested dunk, giving the Wolfpack a three-point cushion.
He has made an impact in other games as well, shutting down Marquette's Lazar Hayward in the Wolfpack's biggest road win of the season and filling in when junior Tracy Smith was in foul trouble against Austin-Peay in the Glenn Wilkes Classic in Daytona Beach, Fla.
"The first thing that goes through my head when I go out on the court is to make a big defensive stop or do something to help out," he said. "I just want to make a momentum change and bring some energy to the game."
Davis says he's been a little surprised at just how much playing time he has gotten in the Wolfpack's first nine games. He was, after all, the fifth man in a five-player recruiting class. But he has quickly become one of Lowe's favorite players because of his high-energy contributions.
Davis says he knows he needs work on his jump shot, his free throw shooting and his ball-handling abilities. But he proudly claims that his best talent is simply a well-developed work ethic.
The Wolfpack coaches saw that when Davis attended the Wolfpack Elite basketball camp and a team camp at Reynolds Coliseum following his junior prep season. There, the lanky forward completely shut down Wolfpack signee Lorenzo Brown.
That caught the coaches' attention.
Last winter, Davis averaged more than 18 points a game at Athens Drive and received some interest from a few mid-major and low-major schools. But he held out hope for the Wolfpack, keeping Gardner-Webb, Charleston Southern, High Point, UNC-Wilmington and Old Dominion at arm's length. There was some talk about going to prep school or walking on with the Wolfpack, but Davis wasn't sure either of those options was financially feasible for his single mother, Veronica Davis.
Davis had no doubts that he could keep up with ACC-level competition. He believed his skills were comparable to those of Panther Creek High School's Earnest Ross, who signed with Auburn, and Middle Creek High School's Garrius Adams, who is now a freshman at ACC-foe Miami.
"Seeing that those guys signed at those schools, it made me play harder," Davis said. "I felt like I could play on this level."
He just needed to get the eye of the coaches from the school where he wanted to play. He found just the way to do it: work harder than everyone else.
"My whole life, growing up, I have kind of been under the radar," Davis said. "I told myself that I have to work as hard as I can, to work harder than the other guy, to get noticed. My AAU coach told me that is what college coaches noticed the most about me: playing hard, playing defense, rebounding.
"It shows if you want something, you have to be patient and work hard for it and you can get it."
Finally, not long after Davis earned Most Valuable Player honors in the Carolinas All-Star Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C., he got the long-coveted scholarship offer from the Wolfpack.
Davis was not unnoticed by Lowe and the Wolfpack staff. They knew how much he wanted to wear the red-and-white of the Wolfpack. And they appreciated his patience.
"It speaks volumes about him that he was being recruited by other people and he just said 'I am going to wait, because I want to go to NC State,'" Lowe said. "We saw his ability to defend and his hustle. He had a great attitude. We were lucky that he really wanted to come here.
"That means more than people can ever imagine, that a young man wants to wear that State jersey and takes tremendous pride when he puts it on. He grew up dreaming about wearing that jersey."
Barely eight months ago, Davis was a recruit without a place to play. In two days, he'll be playing in his first ACC game when the Wolfpack travels to Wake Forest for its conference opener, a 7:45 p.m. contest that will be aired on Fox Sports South.
"It's real exciting," Davis said Friday afternoon, just before he headed to practice. "I am ready."
And, as long as he keeps adding energy off the bench, he will have an important role in the Wolfpack's lineup.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
