Taking a vacation wasn’t in Quinndary Weatherspoon’s summer plans.
Spending time away from the court also wasn’t an option following a standout freshman season with the Mississippi State men’s basketball team.
So while friends relaxed and took time to get away from the daily rigors of college life, Weatherspoon attacked his “offseason” and took to the court. Training with his brother, Nick, in his hometown of Canton, Quinndary filled his days in May by making 400 shots from all over the court and hitting the weight room hard.
“He (worked on his game) a lot more just trying to get prepared for this season,” Nick said. “He worked on his ballhandling skills and things like that.”
In June and July, Quinndary worked with his teammates and coaches Starkville and went through drills to build chemistry with new players.
The work and time Weatherspoon invested in the summer paid off in August, when he was MSU’s leading scorer in four games in Italy. Weatherspoon scored a team-high 93 points (23.3 per game) and shot 47.3 percent from the field. He averaged 4.5 rebounds, and had 12 assists and 14 steals.
That performance offered a glimpse of what Weatherspoon can bring to the table in coach Ben Howland’s second season in Starkville.
This morning, Weatherspoon was one of seven players named to the preseason All-Southeastern Conference second team by national and SEC media members.
Kentucky was picked as the preseason No. 1 team,
At 1:30-3:30 p.m. today, Weatherspoon, senior point guard I.J. Ready, and Howland will talk about the preparations for the 2016-17 season at the annual Southeastern Conference Media Days. SEC Network will broadcast the event live from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.
Weatherspoon averaged 12 points and 4.7 rebounds per game as a freshman. He was even better in SEC games, averaging 14.9 points and 5.8 rebounds. With MSU’s top two scorers gone, big things are expected of Weatherspoon, which is why Quinndary’s father, Tommie, wasn’t surprised by the work his son did in the summer. From an early age, he said Quinndary’s summers revolved around basketball and playing in Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) tournaments.
“When it comes down to basketball, he’s always been a real hard worker,” Tommie said. “During the summers, he used to eat, sleep, and play ball every day. He never had a summer like regular teenagers have, like going out and having fun. He always followed basketball year round. When basketball season was over, they would go onto another little league. They played ball all the time.”
Tommie said he saw Quinndary go to the gym multiple times a day to maximize his time, to work on his shot, and to make sure he was in shape for the season. He said Quinndary’s approach to staying healthy has changed since he arrived at MSU. He remembers Quinndary eating a lot of fast food and not thinking about how what he ate was going to affect his body and his game.
“He doesn’t eat like he was eating before he left. He’s eating better and more healthy for his body,” Tommie said. “Now he likes eating good food like vegetables and fruit. I told him that’s going to help his body out a whole lot.”
Nick, who gave a verbal commitment to MSU, said he worked out with Quinndary to encourage his brother and to improve his game. Nick, who said he will sign with MSU on Nov. 9, said Quinndary’s quest to make 400 shots meant he had to put up a lot more than that. Nick said he and Velma Jackson High School basketball coach Anthony Carlyle were there to make sure he was doing his best.
“When he was working out, me and my coach would keep pushing him,” Nick said. “We kept reminding him what we were doing, trying to make him work harder.”
Nick said Quinndary, who is 6-foot-4, 2-5 pounds, was maxing out in the low 200s on the bench press when the summer began. He is now up to 270.
Quinndary helped led Carlyle and Velma Jackson to three-straight Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) Class 3A State championships in his final three seasons.
As a senior, he averaged 19.1 points, 3.9 assists, 5.6 rebounds, and 2.8 steals. He was rated as the second-best player in the state of Mississippi in the 2015 recruiting class behind Callaway High’s Malik Newman. Newman signed with MSU and averaged 11.3 points in 29 games, but he transferred to Kansas in the offseason.
Newman’s departure means MSU will have to find a way to replace six of its top eight scorers from a 14-17 finish last season. Thirteen of the 15 players on MSU’s roster are underclassmen. Even though Weatherspoon is one of those young players, Howland will count on him to help set the tone and bring the others along.
Carlyle said Weatherspoon was more mature when he saw him in the summer. He believes the former Velma Jackson High standout is ready to take the next step.
“I just saw the growth he had made with his strength and conditioning,” said Carlyle, who is stepping away as Velma Jackson’s coach after this season. “He was a lot stronger. You could just see the difference in his game when he came home and he was going up against our guys. He was just so much stronger, and that just opened up so many other things he is trying to do on the court.”
Carlyle also was impressed with Quinndary’s shooting. Weatherspoon shot 44.8 percent from the field (133 of 297), 39.4 percent from 3-point range (43 of 109), and 80.5 percent from the free-throw line (62 of 77) last season. In addition to working on shooting, Carlyle said ballhandling was a focus for Weatherspoon during the summer. Carlyle said Quinndary struggled handling the ball as a freshman and sophomore. He said they avoided giving him the ball in situations where he had to dribble in those first two seasons. Carlyle said Weatherspoon gained more confidence as a junior and was able to play point guard as a senior.
Last season, Weatherspoon played guard and forward.
“You just try to challenge them and work with them on their hand-eye coordination and just being able to do multiple things with the ball,” Carlyle said. “If you can do it here in this drill, it will be a lot easier in the game. We did different drills with him with tennis balls to where he had to catch the ball while still being able to dribble or crossing over.”
Carlyle said he wasn’t shocked by how Weatherspoon adjusted to the college game because he knew Quinndary was going to make an immediate impact.
In August, Howland said he challenged Weatherspoon to be more of a vocal leader. Quinndary said he has tried to be more vocal, but his nature is to lead by example. Nick feels his older brother will handle the leadership responsibility well when the season begins.
“It will translate well because he will be a lot bigger than some of those guards, especially those freshmen that are coming in,” Nick said. “I feel like that will help him out a lot.
“I think when the season comes, he’ll be much better. He’s handling it real well.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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