S P O RT S
BY: STEVE MARSHALL
Promising Talent
PRESENTED BY
Southmoore Product Shoots for Stars at Utah State
A
vid basketball fans in the Oklahoma City area see it all the time. Talented players from local high schools take their talents to the collegiate level before moving on to the NBA. Blake Griffin from Oklahoma Christian School, Trae Young from Norman North and Josh Richardson from Edmond Santa Fe are a few examples. It seems like new prospects pop up on a regular basis, and this season may bring the next local star with NBA promise. Just look to the western horizon. Former Southmoore player Justin Bean is making waves with his teammates at Utah State University. The 6’7 forward is averaging nearly 15 points and 12 rebounds per game, including eight double-doubles in December as the Aggies cracked the AP Top 20 ranking. This isn’t your typical star player who graduated and then got recruited by dozens of 24 | January 2020
collegiate teams before making his final decision on where to continue his education and his basketball career. Bean tore his ACL in his junior year at Southmoore, and, as a result, most schools lost interest his senior season. He took unofficial visits to Utah and Utah State, where he was designated a preferred walk-on. “It was a humbling experience,” he said. “They still wanted to see how I responded to the injury. I just kept a good mind set, positive attitude and knew if I got the opportunity that I could earn the full scholarship.” Bean graduated from Southmoore in 2015 and then went on a two-year mission for his church in Reno, Nev. “It was a great experience for me,” Bean said. “I definitely grew a lot in a lot of ways, but I didn’t play any basketball, so it was kind of difficult to get back in the swing of things.”
