RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Richmond coach Chris Mooney used to begin some practices with a message for Justin Harper, usually on days after Harper hadn’t performed at his best.
“Justin, you’re going to play in the NBA,” Mooney would tell his 6-foot-10 forward.
It was, Mooney said, partly his way of apologizing for riding Harper so hard after a poor performance, and of trying to make him see that his potential is high.
The message is finally sinking in.
“When I’m feeling, it, I’m feeling it, but I really just come out there every night with the same mindset,” Haper said after scoring a career-best 30 points on 11 of 15 shooting in a victory against George Washington. “I have to be aggressive for my team to do well.”
Harper is averaging 17.9 points and shooting better than 56 percent from the field for the Spiders (16-5, 5-1 Atlantic 10), who host Xavier (14-5, 6-0) at noon Saturday. In league games, Harper’s been even better, averaging 23.7 points and shooting nearly 59 percent.
Rarely does a game go by that NBA scouts aren’t watching closely, making notes about his smooth stroke from behind the 3-point line, the way he runs the floor, his leaping ability.
Harper tries not to think about it, not wanting it to disrupt his game.
“It’s one of my goals, but I feel like if I go out here and play as hard as I can each and every game, that I’ll be where I want to be when it’s all said and done,” he said.
And where he wants to be, he added, is the NBA.
Not bad for a big man who couldn’t even get a look from the two major college programs in his home state, and who wound up picking the Spiders in his home city over Providence.
At Meadowbrook High School, Harper played center, but shot a lot of 3-pointers.
“That was mostly my game,” he said, and may have led some to conclude he was soft. “I guess some people looked at it like that because I wasn’t as well rounded as I am now.”
Now, while making 49.5 percent of his 3-point shots, he’s equally comfortable driving to the basket, making a spin move in the lane, pulling up for a jumper or a soft fadeaway.
A scout who has watched Harper said he’s still not sure where he would play. He’s long and lean at 225 pounds, but with a skill set more typical of a smaller forward.
Anderson, the 2010 player of the year in the Atlantic 10, is drawing notice from scouts, too, but thinks Harper is on a different level – and finally showing it as a senior.
“The things he can do, you see it every day in practice,” Anderson said. “He can go a whole practice without missing and you see that in practice, and it was kind of frustrating that it wasn’t leading over into games. Now, he’s being more aggressive, not caring about taking any shots or missing any shots, and he’s so comfortable, I think he’s unstoppable.”
There are times, Mooney said, when he has to leave his expectations at the door.
“He gets 10 rebounds, and you feel like, ‘Couldn’t he have had 28 rebounds?”’ Mooney said. “That’s how good he is, and you start to put these unbelievable expectations on him.”
From an opposing bench, Karl Hobbs has watched Harper emerge for four years.
“He’s a very good player. He’s a senior and he’s playing like a senior,” the Colonials coach said after Harper’s career-high scoring night. “You’ve got to give him credit for all the work that he’s done and all the work that he’s put in. Hard work – he’s a result of it.”
That work was especially evident this summer, when the graduation of high-scoring guard David Gonzalvez left the Spiders in need of a consistent scorer to complement Anderson.
Harper had averaged just 10.6 points as a junior, showing flashes of brilliance.
“This summer, I don’t know what he was doing, but he really started putting it together – inside, outside, driving, shooting fadeaways, getting to the cup,” fellow senior Kevin Smith said. “I think it was just confidence and he assumed a position as a person who came come into a game and dominate on both ends of the floor, and that’s what he’s been doing.”
To Anderson, who has roomed with Harper for 4 years, the timing couldn’t be better.
“He knew he had to step up this year and be a leader of the team,” he said. “The years previous, he knew he always had someone to lean on, and now it’s guys leaning on him.
“He knew he had to step up and that’s what he’s doing. His mindset just changed.”
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