A couple of games after replacing injured teammate Cameron Ridley in the starting lineup early last month, Texas center Prince Ibeh was struggling. It if weren’t difficult enough for Ibeh, lightly used his previous three seasons in Austin, to be cast into a role with which he was unfamiliar, he was also feeling a sort of survivor’s guilt for having taken a fallen comrade’s minutes.
All that changed with one phone call.
That call came from Ridley, who reminded Ibeh (pronounced like the online store eBay), that both of them had seen a better version of the big man — on a daily basis.
“Cam called me and told me to start playing like the guy he played against in practice every day,” Ibeh said. “He believed in me, and I began to focus on that.”
Ridley wasn’t the only member of the Texas program to profess confidence in Ibeh. Well before the season began, and many times after, head coach Shaka Smart, whose stock in trade is positive reinforcement, planted a thought in the 6-foot-11, 265-pound Ibeh’s head. But Ibeh wasn’t ready to believe it until after Ridley’s own encouragement awakened him to the possibilities of the opportunity he’d been given.
“Even when I wasn’t playing, coach Smart would come up to me and tell me I was the most important guy on this team,” Ibeh said, laughing in advance of his next comment. “And I didn’t believe him. I thought, ‘this guy must be crazy.’ “
No, Smart hadn’t taken leave of his senses, nor was he giving Ibeh an overly optimistic assessment of his ability. Smart and his coaching staff knew that Ibeh’s length, his bulk, his athletic ability, could earn him NBA money one day, if he could ever figure out how to use it all with maximum efficiency.
Once Ibeh’s path was cleared by the broken foot suffered by Ridley in a late-December practice, he had little choice but to respond. Ibeh’s future in basketball, and Texas’ season, stood together at a crossroads.
The Longhorns lost their first two Big 12 Conference games, to seemingly outmanned opponents Texas Tech and TCU, as Ibeh tried to adjust to his newfound status as a starter. Then came Ridley’s vote of confidence and Ibeh’s subsequent emergence.
Against Kansas, Ibeh played a career-high 35 minutes and delivered a lucky seven stat line — seven points, seven rebounds and seven blocks. Not since future NBA star Anthony Davis, then with Kentucky, also blocked seven shots against KU in 2011 had one player sent so many of the Jayhawks’ shots back at them.
In a revenge match against TCU, Ibeh stepped up with 17 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in a Texas win. Against a Vanderbilt frontline with two future NBA players, Ibeh delivered 13 points, 11 boards and a couple of blocks, and the Longhorns won again. By the time he dropped nine points and 11 rebounds on then-No. 3 Oklahoma on Feb. 8 in a nationally televised game, ESPN analyst Fran Frachilla, a man not given to overstatement, was declaring in no uncertain terms that Ibeh had transformed himself, in the course of little more than a month, from benchwarmer to NBA draft pick.
Several NBA scouts agree. But did Ibeh really emerge that quickly?
Yes, and no. College coaches had salivated over Ibeh’s physical tools and potential when he was still in high school in Garland, Texas. Former Texas assistant Chris Ogden, who followed his former boss Rick Barnes to Tennessee, remembers seeing Ibeh for the first time.
“The first thing you noticed was the length and how quickly he got off the floor,” Ogden said. “I’d always thought he could be an elite rim protector and rebounder.”
There was no doubt Ibeh could protect the rim. His number of blocked shots per minutes played was off the charts his first three seasons. As a freshman, he was second on the team in blocked shots (40) despite playing just 10.4 minutes a game. A year later he blocked 61 shots, also second among the Longhorns, in an average of 13.6 minutes. Last season, Barnes’ last at Texas, Ibeh’s minutes dipped to 10.4 a game, but he still blocked 47 shots.
Part of Ibeh’s problem was that Barnes collected huge post players like baseball cards. Minutes were hard to find. But Ibeh made it harder on himself by being foul prone and not always exerting himself.
After Barnes parted ways with Texas and landed at Tennessee, it was left up to his replacement, Shaka Smart, to see what he could get out of Ibeh. And for this season’s first 10 games, it wasn’t much. Ibeh averaged 9.5 minutes, 1.2 points and 3.0 rebounds. All the while, Smart kept repeating that mantra in Ibeh’s ear: “You’re the most important player on this team.”
Then came Ridley’s injury, and Ibeh’s ascension into the starting lineup. In the 15 games since he’s become a starter, Ibeh has averaged 23.1 minutes, 6.1 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.8 blocked shots. Ibeh’s play helped Texas, 17-9, turn around its season, too. After that 0-2 start in the Big 12, the Longhorns are 8-5, with a season sweep of West Virginia and wins over Iowa State and Baylor propelling them back into the NCAA Tournament picture.
The first order of business in helping Ibeh reach his potential was reminding him that his package of size and skills is uncommon.
“You could go around the country,” said Texas assistant coach Mike Morrell, who followed Smart from VCU, “and I would guess there aren’t two or three guys in in Division I basketball that look like him. He’s an absolute specimen.”
Darrin Horn, the former head coach at Western Kentucky and South Carolina who left a comfy career as an ESPN analyst to join Smart’s staff, has been around some quality big men in his career, even dating back to his days as a Tom Izzo assistant at Michigan State. Ibeh stands out.
“The thing people don’t realize about this kid is he’s 260, 265 pounds,” Horn said. “He’s not 220, or 240. He’s a 260-plus pound seven footer with a wingspan and foot speed. The dude’s got some gifts.”
Even as an experienced former head coach, Horn has learned a few tricks from Smart. One of those is the ability to get inside a player’s head and unlock the key to coaching him. Horn, who tutors the Texas big men, asked Ibeh a simple question. How do you want to be coached?
“He just said, ‘coach, I want to be taught. I want to be held accountable. You don’t have to yell and scream and cuss at me.’ The real reason guys don’t play well is they don’t work hard enough. If you’ve got talent, and you’re not playing well or consistently, it’s no secret why.”
So Horn and Ibeh developed a CliffsNotes way of communicating.
“No big deal,” Horn said. “It’s like, ‘Hey man, you’re not bringing it. You either need to get out and get a blow or you need to play harder.’ And he’d nod his head and play harder. There’ve been a handful of times where we’ve gone after him, but I’ve learned a lot by doing it the other way.”
Ibeh has responded.
“Coach Horn won’t let me take any plays off,” Ibeh said. “He’s helping me built a motor, and learn what it takes to play hard every day.”
Part two of the Ibeh reclamation project was keeping him on the floor. Foul trouble had grounded him numerous times in the past.
“Even when Cameron Ridley was out there, we’d tell Prince, ‘we want you to play more, but you foul all the time. Let’s look at why,’ ” Horn said. “This is where Shaka is so good. We looked at film and started drilling the kid with defensive techniques. If you get caught with this guy coming at you, don’t keep going at him. Use your length. You’re better off to let a guy get by you and try to shoot over you than trying to stay in front and fouling him.”
Not that Ibeh can’t stay in front of defenders, especially after switching in pick-and-roll situations. The game that probably sealed his NBA future was against Oklahoma and its national player of the year candidate Buddy Hield.
“That game demonstrated what he was capable of at the next level,” Horn said. “We switched ball screens, and Buddy Hield didn’t go by him. Not one time. We’re talking about a guy that can be an elite ball screen defender and rim protector at the next level.”
Chris Ogden, the man who first recruited Ibeh for Texas, was watching that Oklahoma game from afar. And when he turned off the television, a thought occurred.
“Now that’s the guy we thought we had when we signed him,” Ogden said.
Ibeh always had the ability to be a major contributor. And now that an opportunity has been given him, he’s taken advantage. Plenty of players have been drafted into the NBA with just one elite skill. Ibeh has at least two — shot blocking and rebounding — and he’s also got NBA size, mobility and intelligence.
Ibeh regrets that it took an injury to open a spot for him to finally showcase his skills. But he’s grateful for the opportunity, and the support the Texas staff has given him.
“I love coach Smart, and this staff,” Ibeh said. “I’m trying to focus on the here and now, to help this team wins. But whatever happens in the future, I’ll owe it to these coaches. Coach Smart saw something in me when I didn’t necessarily see it in myself.”
Chris Dortch is the editor of the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook.
You can email him here, follow him on Twitter and listen to the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Hour.
