Go-To Guy
By Ryan Church
With less than a minute left in a game against Pac-10 rival Stanford, the Huskies trailed the Cardinal 68-69 before junior guard Donald Watts hit a turnaround baseline jumper to give Washington the lead. With less than 10 seconds remaining, Washington again trailed by a point, but again Watts answered. This time with a 6-foot baseline jumper over Tim Young to give the Huskies an advantage with 5.1 seconds left. Stanford answered quickly, and there was no time left for Watts to bring the heroics that Husky fans are used to seeing from him this season.
Had Washington beat Stanford, it would have been the third time this season that Watts would have lifted the Huskies to victory with a last-second shot. Shooting from outside or taking it to the rack, Watts has been the guy to go to the bank when the Huskies need the money.
It has been bumpy ride for Watts to reach the his present heights. Coming to Washington has a highly touted prep player, Watts struggled during his first two years as a Husky.
"I've always had a vision of where I wanted to be as a basketball player and through those first two years I was well short of that vision," says Watts, the 1995 Washington State Prep player of the year. "I knew there were things in my body that were not right. I was trying to hold on and get answers."
Watts shot only 29 percent as a freshman, averaging only three points per game. Last year his numbers improved slightly, as he averaged 8.9 per game. Despite the improvement, his game was not yet at a level with which anyone was satisfied.
"I knew that something was wrong with my body coming into my freshman year," recalls Watts. "I knew that something was wrong with my body, but I kept playing and trying to tough it out. But I wasn't doing what I wanted or was expected to do and things didn't get any better over the summer after the season."
This season, Watts has come into his own. He ranks second on the team, averaging a stellar 17.6 points per game. Through 18 games this season Watts had already passed his scoring total of the first two seasons he played at Washington. What's more, Watts leads the team in assists.
"I want to be the guy that is going to take the shot and make the shot at the end of the game," says the junior guard. "If I draw the double team or if they switch defenders, I want to create something and give somebody else that opportunity to get us the win. I like being the guy my teammates look to when things are important and need to happen.
"It feels good. Coming into the season, I knew it was going to be a challenge. I got some things squared away with my body and can put those concerns behind me," says Watts.
For Watts, adjusting to college life included several different struggles that went beyond the realm of typical for a freshman at Washington. In addition to being away from home, Watts had the lofty expectations as a basketball player were placed on him by everyone. All the while, Watts was also fighting his body.
"I was cramping up and was constantly fatigued and it was hard for me to practice every day for the first two years that I was here," explains Watts. "I was not playing at the high level that I, or the coaches, or anybody wanted me to play at. I was giving 100 percent, but I was not being productive. "
A new diet is largely responsible to Watts' renewed success with the Huskies after doctors found a disorder in his adrenal glands.
"The diet is the big difference in my performance," proclaims Watts. "Dealing with everything over the past two years has made me mentally tougher and more mature. That has paid off for me in my game, but there has not been any particular part of my game that I have focused on to get better. The difference is having control of my body and I can practice day-in and day-out and bounce back if things don't go right."
Watts is now able to clearly focus on the visions he has for himself and for his teammates in the not-so-distant future.
"A vision I have for myself is having a game where I'm able to do everything. Being on the glass, playing for teammates, playing for myself, knocking down the open looks and hitting the tough jumpers."
Clearly, Watts is having peeks of his ultimate vision of basketball. However, he's no longer a secret weapon. Even at the end of the first half of the Pac-10 season, Watts was drawing more attention on the offensive end.
"The last few weeks I've draw more attention than ever. In one game (at USC) I didn't get a shot attempt in the first half. It wasn't because my teammates weren't getting me the ball or because I wasn't looking at the rim. They had one guy whose role was to face guard me and prevent me from scoring. It worked out that night because Deon (Luton) was able to go ballistic. In the second half when they had to guard Deon a little more I was able to pick-up where he left off. I know that in the second half of the season I'm not going to surprise anybody."
Did he ever, going 5-for-5 from 3-point range and finishing with 22 points. It's the kind of performance Watts has made common during the Pac-10 sector of the schedule averaging over 20 points per game in conference contests, a conference that features some of the most prominent players at the guard position.
"Every night I'm out there against some great players," says Watts shaking his head. "Every night its somebody else. It didn't realize that until the first week of the season when I was watching a game on TV and they were talking about the great guard play in the Pac-10 and looking at it now, they were right."
Watts is one of the bright spots in the potpourri of Pac-10 guards that are putting up the kind of numbers that deserve national acclaim. With this season's success Watts is enjoying the game he loves more than ever.
"I love basketball. When you watch the games when its tight at the end, I'm smiling, I play the game for those situations," comments Watts about his recent memory. "I love to be in a game with great importance that is coming down to the wire, like the Stanford game, where two good basketball teams are playing good basketball. You have to win those games to win championships."
Among the contributions that Watts has made includes nine 20-point game performances including two games that matched a career-high vs. Arizona and Cal.
Washington remains in the hunt for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. If the Huskies are going to be successful, it will be largely up to the play of Watts, who has taken his game to higher level, and just may take his team with him.
