Published in the Meridian Star on November 27, 2013
“When I was younger, around 7 or 8, he was in high school. I just always wanted to be like him. He was my role model, to this day,” Rodney Hood said. “He played college ball, so I just always wanted to be like him.”
The Hood family was basketball orientated. Everyone played including the brothers’ parents and older sister. It wasn’t just pick up games in the driveway either.
Ricky Hood Sr. and Vicky Hood met at Mississippi State University, where they both played college basketball. Ricky Jr. and Whitney Hood had stellar careers at University of Tennessee Chattanooga. The question wasn’t if the youngest would play, but where.
He grew up a Duke fan, but it was just something always on the TV. Being a Blue Devil? The notion didn’t exist.
“No, it didn’t,” Hood said. “You know, I was a Duke fan around that time, but I never thought I’d be here playing. I was just trying to be like my big brother then, but then I hit a growth spurt. You know, God works in mysterious ways.”
Fast forward roughly 15 years and after a standout career at Meridian High School, he’s living the dream he never had, but certainly wouldn’t change.
The redshirt sophomore isn’t just playing college basketball for Duke – he’s starting for Duke and head coach Mike Krzyzewski, the winningest head coach in NCAA history.
In a breakdown of major NCAA men’s sports, the ones that get TV time per se (basketball, baseball, football and ice hockey), basketball has the fewest starting jobs per game. But helping the cause, men’s basketball has the most teams of any NCAA sanctioned sport. All pieces added together and, somewhat surprisingly, all of a sudden basketball’s five positions offer the highest chance at becoming a college starter.
If on one night, all 335 men’s Division I teams all played, 1,675 names, or 32 percent of men’s college basketball players, would be read off as public address announcers went through each team’s starting five.
But only 0.3 percent of starters (0.096 percent of total men’s basketball players) would take the floor for Krzyzewski before tipoff.
“It’s a big honor being at Duke which is probably the most historic basketball program,” Hood said. “Just being here and playing for the best coach in America, him trusting you to be a starter is an amazing accomplishment. It can be tough at times, you know, every single day you have to bring it.”
Going into Wednesday’s game against Alabama, Hood has been the leading force on the court that Meridian High School head coach Randy Bolden remembers from his days as a Wildcat, putting up double-digit performances in every game. He is averaging 21.8 points and shooting .667 percent (40 of 60) from the floor and .851 percent (40 of 47) from the foul line.
“Him starting and playing the way he’s playing is not a big surprise for me,” Bolden said. “Rodney is a gifted kid. He’s well rounded, he’s talented, nothing he’s doing on the floor surprises me.”
“Whenever you get a kid that’s playing for a legendary coach of Coach K’s status, it is always an honor that they would think enough of our kids that they would come down and recruit them. For him to be doing so well, it makes it that much better.”
Already this season, Hood has four games over the 20-point mark, including a career high 30 points against East Carolina on Nov. 19.
“It was a close game, a game we needed to win,” he said. “I had to step up and hit my free throws and make big plays down the stretch.”
The journey from a Mississippi Class 6A champion to a leading Athletic Coast Conference scorer (third in points per game) didn’t take the traditional route.
Classically, Mississippi is a football powerhouse. Hood said along the way he had to get past some unfair judgment and stay focused on what he wanted.
“I knew I was more than capable of coming here and starting, making a big impact from the beginning,” Hood said. “I just put a lot of work in and didn’t let what other people thought of about me affect me. Coming from Mississippi, they think Duke is a big step up, which it is, but I think I’m more than talented enough to come here and make a big impact.”
Earning the spot
Hood wasn’t just handed a forward starting position, nor his No. 5 white and blue jersey. Both had to be worked for — after all, he is only Krzyzewski’s fourth transfer over a 34-season tenure in Durham.
“We are very, very selective when it comes to recruiting in general, but especially when it comes to transfers,” Duke assistant coach Jeff Capel said. “Rodney is only the fourth guy we’ve taken as a transfer. Obviously, he fills the criteria as far as talent, but as we got to know him, the character stuff was off the charts as well. To me, it was a perfect fit.”
“Coach always says to us as a staff that Rodney is one of the best kids we’ve had in the program, that he’s had here. That’s an amazing compliment since such incredible guys have come through this program.”
After leading Meridian to back-to-back MSHAA Class 6A State Championship games, earning the 2011 title with a 29-2 record while averaging 24.8 points per game that season, Hood followed in his parents’ footsteps and moved to Starkville to be a MSU Bulldog.
He made 29 starts and appeared in 32 of 33 games for Mississippi State, earning SEC All-Freshman honors after posting 10.3 points per game.
It wasn’t enough.
He made the decision to transfer, knowing he’d have to sit out a whole year before taking the court somewhere else due to NCAA regulations. He had long term goals and knew moving 670 miles east would be worth it.
“The coaching staff,” Hood said. “[I want to] get all the knowledge that I can get from them and become a better player. I wanted to come here and become a better player and be one of the best players in the country.”
Hood said being a Wildcat under Bolden taught him the foundations of the sport even though he was born into a basketball family.
“When I was at Meridian High, I became a good basketball player,” Hood said. “Coach Bolden really pushed me to be that player that I am. He instilled a lot of things like hard work, disciple and knowledge of the game. It really helped me in my first year of college and up until now.”
Bolden still remembers the first season the two were together. Hood was a ninth grader, Bolden had just taken over the Meridian’s team.
“When I took the job, he was a ninth grader and playing varsity,” Bolden said. “Right off, I knew from tryouts that he was a special kid.”
A few weeks later, Bolden overheard a conversation between Hood and his mother, Vicky, before practice on day. Hood was worried that the tempo was getting to him, but he didn’t give up and that’s true today. He adapted then and Bolden said he knew Hood could adapt again after transferring.
Except, transferring in the NCAA is much different from the junior high to variety switch.
Hood was required to take a year off. He could work out with the team, but he couldn’t play or travel, which was a huge awakening for him.
“I had to grow up,” Hood said.
Duke wanted him to fill a void they were anticipating because of graduation. Hood wanted to play for Duke to become a better player and push towards career goals. Neither wanted the year off to go to waste.
“There was a growth in me because usually I would have just sat around and got fat in year off rather than working out every single day,” Hood said. “I had to set goals for myself and every single day the team was gone, I had to get into the gym and work on it. I couldn’t just hope that I was going to be a better player just because of my talent. I had to work on it.”
He zoned in and found areas to improve in his game after deciding he wanted to be an All-American this year. Overall strength and explosion on the court were his two biggest concerns and attacked them with a vengeance successfully.
“I’ve really seen his game evolve this past year,” Bolden said. “He’s gotten a lot stronger since high school. His jumping ability has improved. His overall athleticism has really improved. He’s added more range on his jump shot and his whole mentality. He’s more in attack mode, he’s got a different mentality and I think the sky is the limit for him.”
Now he’s dreaming
Duke might not have been in the cards growing up, but Hood is there and focused.
He has evaluated where he is, what it means, what’s realistic and what to reach for.
“My ultimate goal is to win a National Championship,” Hood said. “Hopefully, if I stay healthy and things like that, I think I have a career beyond college, but my ultimate goal is to win a National Championship and I think that’s everybody’s goal around here.”
The ability to play after Duke is something Krzyzewski, who also serves as the USA Olympic men’s coach, and his assistants like Capel are looking for in the recruiting process as it shows a sense of dedication to the sport.
“When we recruited him during the transfer process, that’s what we recruited him as,” Capel said. “That was one of the things we talked about. ‘You should be a pro, but not just a pro, a really good pro. You have to learn how to do that. It doesn’t just happen.’ We think he should be not just an NBA player, but a guy that’s first round pick, a lottery pick and a guy that’s a high draft pick.”
Bolden saw NBA qualities in Hood as a high schooler and still sees them to this day.
“I can remember when he was an eleventh grader, I was telling his mom that Rodney was definitely a NBA-type player if he continued to get better and get stronger,” he said. “She kind of blew me off and was like, ‘Coach, I don’t know.’ … It’s one of those were I can look at her and say ‘I told you so.'”
But first things first.
Bolden said Hood has always been a team oriented guy and has a love for championship banners. In 2010, the Wildcats made their first run at the MSHAA Class 6A title but fell in the championship game. Hood took it personally, and hard, tearing up in a TV post-game interview and making a promise he followed through on.
“When we lost, he guaranteed that we’d be back and would win it, and we did exactly that,” Bolden said. “He’s a man of his words.”
The following year, Hood and the Wildcats got their state championship. Assuming Hood’s words haven’t lost any power, the Blue Devils could be headed for North Texas in April. “I think that’s the extraordinary thing about Rodney,” Bolden said. “He’s a team guy and that’s what makes him so special. He always puts the team before himself. He’s always about winning championships and team wins. Team was always No. 1 and that’s what stands out to me.” – See more at: http://www.meridianstar.com/sports/x678368696/Former-MHS-star-a-leading-force-for-No-6-Duke#sthash.gz04uBCj.dpuf