Freshman Brandon Averette is Brad Underwood’s Type of Guy

Brad Underwood appreciates what he has in Brandon Averette.

After Jawun Evans was ruled out for the Cowboys’ road game at Tulsa last weekend (and with two-guard Phil Forte hampered with his own injury), the depth chart for point guards looked pretty shallow.

So Underwood turned to his true freshman.

“Gosh, I don’t know at any time, even at SFA, go back to my junior-college days, where I ever played anybody 37 minutes,” said Underwood said. “And he did it at both ends of the court.”

On one end of the court Averette led all scorers on Saturday with 17 points and added three assists. On the other end he nabbed three steals and also pitched in three rebounds.

“When you’re trying to establish your own identity and change your culture you want those type of people,” said Underwood “And I didn’t have one second of doubt that he was gonna play as a freshman, that he was going to have a tremendous career because of how hard he works. That becomes very contagious and those are the type of guys that we want at Oklahoma State.”

Most coaches didn’t see what Underwood did in Averette who again had a good game with 9 points, a rebound, an assist and a steal in 19 minutes on Wednesday against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Oklahoma State was the only power five school to offer the 5-foot-11 point guard. And that offer only came after Underwood was given the job (Averette had committed to play for Underwood at Stephen F. Austin.)

“From day one, him (Underwood) and Coach Boynton, they believed in me,” Averette said. “I didn’t have a big recruiting process. At one point they were the only coaches that were talking to me and they were the only coaches that believed in me and offered me so immediately I knew I just wanted to stick with those guys.”

His team needed him to step up and @Ba_Sosmoove_05 did just that. It earned him Big 12 Newcomer of the Week honors in the process. #okstate pic.twitter.com/tJ7kGPD9lG

— Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) December 14, 2016

Averette, along with the rest of the Cowboy freshmen that helped close out Tulsa, proved a lot to their head coach. He rewarded them with 89 minutes played on Wednesday.

“That group fought,” added Underwood. “They competed. They played together. They stayed together and (had) surprisingly good leadership out there from that group.”