J'Covan Brown

This season, Texas Longhorns coach Rick Barnes will be handing the keys to the team to junior guard J'Covan Brown. With the departure of Jordan Hamilton, Brown will be expected to be the Horns' primary scorer as well as the team's primary leader. As seen in the Horns' past 2 NCAA tournament appearances, Brown has the ability to carry a team on his back, but this year he will be trusted to do so on a much more consistent basis.

Brown's path to becoming the Longhorns' go-to guy and a pre-season All-Big12 selection has been bumpy to say the least. In high school during his freshman and sophomore seasons, Brown led Beaumont Kelly to back-to-back state championships. Then under auspicious circumstances, he tranferred schools to Port Arthur Memorial. There, Brown scored 30 points per game over the course of a seaon and a half, only to run into a major roadblock during Memorial's district opener against Humble his senior season. In the first half of the game, Brown was given a technical foul and was benched by Memorial coach Terrul Henderson. Frustrated that he was still sitting on the bench with only 30 seconds left in the game and his team losing, Brown then stormed from the bench to the locker room, angrily removing his jersey along the way. The incident caused Brown to be suspended for the remainder of his senior season.

Fortunately for Brown, Rick Barnes still wanted him to become a Texas Longhorn. But Brown couldn't sign his letter of intent until he became academically eligle to enroll at Texas. And that took a full year of Brown attending a post-graduate school in Houston. Finally in the Fall of 2009, Brown joined the Texas squad but during his freshman season found himself in Barnes' doghouse, not so much for blatant mistakes made on the court but for poor body language and a bad attitude. While Brown's obvious basketball talent was never in question, it was still iffy whether Brown would be able to overcome the tantrums and lackadaisical attention to detail that had plagued his career up to that point.

Three things that happened during his freshman year did indicate that Brown indeed possessed the potential to transform himself into a mature player. One was that he made the Big12 Commissioner's Honor Roll both semesters, indicating that Brown kept his grade point average above 3.0 as an Applied Learning and Development major. Two was that he led the Big12 with a 89.8% free throw percentage, revealing a strong work ethic. And three was his gutsy performace against Wake Forest in the 1st round of the NCAA tournament. It wasn't quite enough to secure the win for the Longhorns, but Brown scored all 20 of his total points in the 2nd half and overtime of that game.

Brown continued to play off of the bench during his sophomore season and did so admirably. He scored 17 of his 23 total points in the 2nd half of an epic win at Kansas, breaking the Jayhawks' 69-game winstreak at Allen Fieldhouse. Then during the NCAA tournament, Brown became by far the Horns' best offensive option. He scored 21 of his 23 total points in the 2nd half of a losing effort against Arizona in the 3rd round of the tourney, leaving many Texas fans in awe at how effective Brown could be at keeping the Horns in the game practically all on his own.

So with so few Horns returning from last season, Brown is inequivocally the man for Texas in 2011-12. How Brown works with a new crop of fellow guards, including true point guard Myck Kabongo, will tell us a lot about how this year's team will fare. Having averaged 9.6 points in 21.7 minutes per game his freshman season and 10.4 points in 21.5 minutes per game his sophomore season, it's safe to assume that with increased minutes Brown will be contending to score around 20 points per game this year as a starter. Conditioning coach Todd Wright has been working Brown hard this off-season, preparing him to maintain his high level of performance while greatly fatigued.

So will J'Covan Brown step up and amply drive this Longhorns team back into the NCAA Tournament? Or will he crack under the pressure? Can't wait to find out...