Small-Town Boys Become Big-Time Stars

Oklahoma State’s basketball team would be in big trouble without Bryant Reeves. The same is true with Ryan Minor at Oklahoma and Pooh Williamson at Tulsa.

Each is the most important player on his team - Reeves a dominating center, Minor a do-everything forward and Williamson a smooth point guard. But they have something else in common. All are small-town kids who have developed into big-time players.

Reeves is from Gans, a town of 218 in eastern Oklahoma near the Arkansas border. Like Minor, he played Class B basketball in high school, the lowest classification in the state.

Reeves was considered a project when he arrived at Oklahoma State. Although he was gifted with size and good hands, he was soft and clearly was not accustomed to the level of play he found in the Big Eight.

“It’s probably true, more times than not, that players from small communities have to fully understand they can play at this level,” coach Eddie Sutton said.

Reeves started to understand that early on and made significant progress throughout his freshman season, when he was given the nickname Big Country. As a sophomore, he was named the Big Eight’s player of the year.

He was a runner-up in the balloting last season, and this year is having another good year, averaging 22 points and nine rebounds.

“Big Country, he’s had to battle and work his way up and you’ve got to give him a lot of credit for that,” said Minor, who grew up in the western Oklahoma town of Hammon, population 611, and played against Reeves in high school.

“I think you have to credit a lot of that to the work ethic and just a desire to play and try to get out of the small towns so you can make something of yourselves. That’s a desire, I think, in a lot of small towns.”

It was a desire for Williamson, whose hometown of Beggs in northeastern Oklahoma is the largest of the three at about 1,150 people. Williamson led Beggs to the Class 2A state championship as a junior and a senior, but he did not have a Division I scholarship waiting for him when he graduated.

Coach Tubby Smith, who was in his first year at Tulsa at the time and needed players, saw Williamson at an AAU practice and offered him a scholarship.

“When you first get here, people don’t expect much from you,” Williamson said. “They’ll say, `OK, you averaged 27 or 23 points a game, but who were you playing against?’ That’s where the motivation comes in, to improve and to prove yourself.”

Now a senior, Williamson is the heart of a Tulsa team that is atop the Missouri Valley Conference and hoping for a second straight berth in the NCAA tournament.

It was that tournament a year ago where Williamson proved he could play with anyone. In a first-round upset of UCLA, he had 20 points, eight assists and no turnovers. He followed that with 20 points and no turnovers in a victory over Oklahoma State. In a regional semifinal loss to Arkansas, he scored 13 points and had seven assists.

This year, Williamson is averaging 13 points and four assists per game. He has not shot consistently well, but his importance is not lost on Smith.

“When you start mixing the chemicals, Pooh is the part that brings us all together,” he said.

Minor has become a star in this, his junior season. The 6-foot-7 forward leads the Big Eight in scoring with a 23.2 average, and he’ll mix it up inside as well. His 8.8 rebounds per game lead the team.

“He’s not just a great player, he’s a great competitor,” Texas coach Tom Penders said after Minor scored 30 points against the Longhorns. “In my opinion, he’s one of the top guys in college basketball and on a fairly consistent basis, too.”

Minor, who helped lead Hammon to two state titles, is also a good baseball player. A first baseman, he was part of the Oklahoma team that won the College World Series last year.