Early in his freshman season at Empire High School, Deion James went through a break-in period in which he didn’t make a basket against St. David, Bisbee, Tanque Verde and the Canyon State Academy.
Goose egg after goose egg.
James was a 5-foot-11-inch point guard at one of Southern Arizona’s newest high schools playing in obscurity against Sells Baboquivari, Red Rock, Whiteriver Alchesay and Tombstone.
“Honestly,” said Pima College basketball coach Brian Peabody, “nobody had a clue about what type of potential Deion had.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Deion James, who is now 6-8, walked into the weight room near Peabody’s PCC office, where the phone rarely stops ringing with inquiries about the former Empire Ravens point guard.
Coaches from Iowa State, Illinois, LMU and new UC Santa Barbara coach Joe Pasternack are hopeful James will consider playing at their school. This was barely 24 hours after James returned from a recruiting trip to Washington State, and before that, Fresno State and Colorado State.
“I’ve been a head coach for 25 years and I’ve had a few higher-recruited players,” Peabody said. “But I’ve never had anyone recruited by more schools than Deion. I bet he has over 50 Division I offers.”
A week earlier, James was selected the NJCAA Division II Player of the Year. There are 128 schools in Division II junior college basketball, or 640 starting positions. Of that group, Deion James is No. 1.
“I always had a vision in my head that I would be successful when I chose to enroll at Pima,” James said, modestly. “It was starting on a new path, making some changes in my life. But to be the player of the year? Nobody would’ve thought that.”
A year earlier, James sat on the bench at a woeful North Carolina A&T, whose coach, Cy Alexander, was fired at midseason. James didn’t play in 10 games for a team that finished 10-22.
He returned home to Tucson and regrouped, mingling with Peabody’s returning Pima Aztecs, joining them for pickup games. When asked about his year in Greensboro, the soft-spoken James didn’t go into detail, didn’t talk about the 10 games he didn’t get off the bench, didn’t talk about the time Notre Dame beat A&T 107-53.
Peabody watched James’ body language and was impressed. He didn’t big-time anyone, didn’t play hero-ball in pickup games, but rather was part of the gang.
“One day last summer Deion sat in a chair in my office and we talked about where he might play,” Peabody remembers. “He’s such a good kid; it wasn’t me-me-me, but eventually I made it about him.
“I said ‘Deion, if you go somewhere else, you’re a piece of the puzzle. If you play for Pima, you are the puzzle.”
James led the Aztecs to the Region I championship, to a No. 7 finish nationally, and to 22 victories, the most at PCC since 1990. He led the ACCAC in scoring (20.8) and was second in rebounds. And remember this: the ACCAC is probably the most talented league in junior-college basketball.
It wasn’t just a success, it was fun.
“Playing in Brian’s system was so much different than last year,” James said. “We averaged 100 points. You’d look at our box score and one guy would have 22, another would have 17, another 15, another 13, another 10. Everybody had a role. I was fortunate to be part of it.”
In one key period, James scored 33 against South Mountain, 31 against Scottsdale and, in the opener of the NJCAA championships, 30 against Waubonsee College of Illinois. Coaches from Utah State and UTEP showed up in the PCC gymnasium to introduce themselves.
Isn’t that what the 2016-17 was at Pima College? A time to introduce the Aztecs as a national contender?
How did this happen to a former 5-11 point guard who evolved into the definition of modern basketball’s coveted “stretch 4” power forward?
“I pretty much sprouted from 5-11 to 6-8 or so in my days at Empire, about 2 inches a year,” he said. “I just kept growing. We were kind of surprised because my dad is about 6 feet and my mom maybe 5-7 or so.”
His point guard skills as a teenager didn’t go away; one of the reasons more than 50 Division I schools pursue James is because he can dribble effectively with either hand, shoot accurately from 3-point distance, play with his back to the basket and score with both hands around the basket.
“He’s probably the most skilled 4-man west of the Mississippi who’s still being recruited,” said Peabody. “A lot of guys try to do things they can’t do; that’s not Deion. In the year we had him, he figured himself out. Wherever he chooses to go, they’ve got a winner.”
