Marshall University Athletics
Browning Watches and Waits for Herd Opportunity
1/28/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By STEVE COTTON
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- Game days are hard for Stevie Browning, who has to sit and watch his basketball teammates battle Marshall's opposition.
As a transfer from Division II Fairmont State, Browning can practice with the Thundering Herd, but cannot play in games until next season.
"I sit there watching and wishing I was playing," said the Logan High School product, who retains two seasons of eligibility at Marshall. "I wish I could be out there helping them. But that's not my job this year.
"This year my job is two things. I need to push the team every time I practice with them to help them get better, and I also need to push myself to get better every day so when I can play next year I can be a guy who helps us win."
The Marshall coaching staff wishes the 6-foot-3 Browning could be on the court on game day, too; his shooting and playmaking abilities seem a perfect fit in Coach Dan D'Antoni's wide-open system. It's a match that almost never happened.
"Not many people seem to like both Marshall and West Virginia University, but I liked both growing up," Browning said. "It was just a dream of mine to play that level of basketball, so I rooted for both of those teams.
"I didn't go to many games in person - just one at Marshall - but I'd watch and listen and root for both. As I went along, Marshall just became the place I thought I wanted to go and that stuck with me even while I was at Fairmont."
One of the top candidates for the Bill Evans Award as the West Virginia boys high school player of the year after averaging 25 points per game as a senior at Logan, Browning spent two seasons at Fairmont State. He averaged 7 points per game while starting as a freshman, then led the Falcons by scoring 17 points per game for a 20-win team as a sophomore.
That sort of improvement and progress in Browning's play is evident, year by year.
"I didn't get to actually do that much early in my high school career because I played behind big scorers," Browning said. "My freshman season I played probably five minutes a game, then my sophomore year it was maybe seven minutes because I was behind Noah Cottrill (who currently plays at Georgetown College) on our state champion team.
"My junior year I started, but we still had Paul Williamson (now at Alderson-Broaddus) and we looked for him to do most of the scoring."
There's no telling what Browning's next step at Fairmont State might have been, but he never could shake the desire to play at Marshall and he asked the Herd for an opportunity to transfer.
"Things were great at Fairmont State; it wasn't any problem there," Browning said. "Those guys were my brothers. But I just didn't want to regret not trying to play D-I. I had played two years of college and knew it was now or never, so I took a chance."
Now it's nearly close enough for Browning to taste the opportunity to fulfill a dream that he's been dreaming almost since birth.
"They say I was 'born with a basketball in my hand,'" Browning said. "My earliest memories are shooting a Nerf basketball at a coat-hanger rim hanging on the door at my grandma's house."
That was quite natural for a guy whose dad, Steve, played college basketball at King College in Tennessee following his high school days that included a state title at Logan for Coach Willie Akers. Steve coached Stevie in youth leagues, and was close at hand during his high school games, too.
Steve Browning has spent more than a decade at the microphone for Logan High School sports, as the color analyst for the Wildcats' basketball, football and baseball broadcasts on radio station WVOW, which is also an affiliate of the Thundering Herd IMG Sports Network.
"Up until my senior season they did the broadcasts right there on the floor along press row," Browning said. "If I did something wrong, those headsets would fly off and he'd yell something at me right there.
"It didn't really seem that weird, though, because he'd been coaching me in all the sports my whole life, so I've always heard his voice from the sidelines. My senior year they moved their broadcast spot up high in the gym, so I didn't really hear him anymore.
"It's pretty fun to go back and listen to the games and it's your dad there talking about you."
Baseball fell by the wayside for Browning after the eighth grade and he left football his junior year as Browning focused on basketball. His body went that direction, too.
"By the time I got to high school I was already pretty quick and athletic, but they just used me as a spot-up shooter because I was so skinny," he said. "By my senior season they looked to me as more of a scorer. I had grown physically, too, and filled out so I was strong enough to start driving into the lane."
The next step in Browning's on-court evolution is to add point guard skills to his repertoire.
"I've been a shooter and a scorer, but I'm really working on my ball handling and learning how to best set up my teammates to help them score," Browning said. "I played point guard a little bit in high school and just a bit at Fairmont State, but now it's my focus.
"I'm getting to appreciate breaking down the defense and making a nice pass to set up a teammate for an easy score just as much as scoring myself, which is what my job was in the past.
"I know I can score because that's what I've done, but I also get joy now in getting other people going. Attack, attack, then figure out who has the easiest shot -- a teammate or maybe even me myself."
Browning and fellow transfers James Kelly (forward from Miami, Fla.) and Jon Elmore (guard from VMI) consistently give the Marshall regulars all they can handle in team practice sessions. He's confident that the improvement he's feeling and seeing daily will soon translate to games.
"You can see it in our practices right now," Browning said. "The guys sitting out this season are going to fit this system perfectly, and the guys who are playing this year and returning will be that much more familiar with it. The coaches are also recruiting more people who match this style - we're going to have a much different look next year doing the same things we're trying to do now.
"Even as this year goes along, the guys are getting better at it. We're making progress, and I think people will be really surprised at how fast this happens."
Veteran play-by-play broadcaster Steve Cotton - a 10-time West Virginia Sportscaster of the Year -- is in his 23rd season on the Thundering Herd/IMG Sports Network.
