Five years ago Tre Scott came in with a class that featured Jacob Evans and Justin Jenifer. Evans is now in the NBA playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Justin is playing overseas. To put this in perspective Evans played three years in Cincinnati and bolted for the NBA and Jenifer played all four years in Cincinnati.
After throwing that information into the universe we are back focused on redshirt senior Tre Scott. Before we can show love to his current state we have to go back into the past to see who Scott is. Of the three members of the 2015 class he was the only one who had to redshirt, while Jenifer didn’t get consistent time he saw Evans logging major minutes on a nightly basis. Also, he was behind a day one starter Gary Clark who was only a sophomore during his redshirt season. With Clark entrenched in front of him for his freshman and sophomore years, he only averaged 10.2 and 12.5 minutes a game, while he played in 71 of them he wasn’t logging major minutes. Clark graduates and boom Scott moves into the starting lineup starts all 35 games, sees a jump in minutes from 12.5 to 30.6, his rebounds goes from 3.6 to 6.9 and his points goes from 3.1 to 9.3. Once he got adjusted to more responsibility you could see him play improve.
After making a big sophomore to junior season jump his senior off-season was filled with doubt with the departure of Mick Cronin to UCLA. In comes John Brannen imputing a new system with a faster tempo. Scott, who graduated during his junior season could’ve transferred if he didn’t feel the new style would benefit him. Now 27 games into his senior season and he’s posting career highs all around the board. He’s averaging 33.6 minutes, 11.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.6 steals and .9 blocks while shooting 50.2% from the field.
While his stats have been great, he is the first player to have a 20 point/20 rebound game in a Bearcat uniform since Kenyon Martin did it in 1998. In seven games this during February he’s averaging 17.0 points, 14.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals, 1.3 blocks, while shooting 60% from the field, 41% from three and playing an average of 39.4 minutes. He’s earned American Athletic Conference Player of the Week once and been AAC Weekly Honor Roll twice. While personally covering the team I haven’t seen a player put up these kind of numbers in a month and with his teams back against the wall trying to fight for a March Madness bid.
During his great February he had one of the best senior moments you could ask for his team down 2 points against Memphis and he knocks down both free throws to force overtime where his team eventually won 92-86. When asked about the key free throws Scott stated, “Those two free throws were big time, I can’t wait to talk to my mom, my dad and grandma back home about those free throws, not the game just the free throws (adds laugh), that was my moment.”
Scott has time to add this his great senior season and it’s hard not to root for him. He’s a guy you can point at as a picture of hard work. At this rate he’s lining up to be the first Bearcat to average a double-double since Dwight “Jelly” Jones did it in the 1982-83 season. Just think of all the great big men that have worn the Bearcat uniform Kenyon Martin, Corey Blount, Danny Fortson, Eric Hicks, Jason Maxiell and others and Scott has a chance to be the first to accomplish this feat in over 30 years.
Enjoy Scott while he’s here #BearcatNation because he’s what being a Bearcat is all about.
