‘He’s going to keep getting better’: Why Nate Ament’s best could still be yet to come
By Ethan Stone
Published:
Nate Ament is quietly turning into the player folks in Knoxville thought he would be when he committed to Tennessee basketball back in April. The versatile 5-star forward, who just dropped 29 points in a win over Alabama, is already leaps and bounds better than the guy who finished a combined 11-39 across a brutal 3-game losing stretch to start December.
Ament’s numbers support this. Across his past 4 outings, he’s averaged 21.5 points per game at 51% shooting from 2 and 38% from 3-point range. Compare that to his previous 15 games, in which he averaged 14.7 points per game at 47% from 2 and 27% from downtown. That noticeable offensive improvement came against consistently better SEC competition, too.
Week by week, the game is slowing down for him. That begs the question: How much better can Nate Ament be for Tennessee?
The smart and safe answer is “we’ll see,” but it’s hard to ignore the immediate promise of the player head coach Rick Barnes has routinely praised since he arrived on campus.
Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day
There are several underappreciated qualities that make Rick Barnes one of the best coaches in the sport. The most crucial of these qualities, in my opinion, is his ability to build a culture that demands selflessness and emphasizes collective effort, which, while doing so, rewards those who buy in to the system. Tennessee’s philosophy is perfectly summarized with a 4-letter acronym: INAM — “It’s Not About Me.” This is true for a top 5 prospect like Nate Ament or a previously unheard of 5-foot-9 point guard out of Long Island.
Barnes’ public confidence in Ament (like it always was with Zakai Zeigler) has been genuine, consistent and unsurprisingly prescient, through the good and the bad. At the end of the day, the Tennessee head coach trusts that Ament will put in the work necessary to let his natural gifts shine as he learns the speed of college basketball.
Those aren’t my words. They’re his — and he’s reiterated them over and over and over again. Take his response to Ament’s brutal outing against Illinois as an example.
In his second-worst graded performance of the season, Ament totaled just 9 points with 2 turnovers on 36% shooting in a 13-point loss. Afterwards, Barnes insisted he was being far too passive and was still working to understand the flow of the college game. However, he finished his statement with the following: “He’ll figure it out because he’s such a good kid and he’s unselfish. We’ll get him going and he’ll get himself going.”
Keep in mind, the game immediately before the Illinois loss had been even worse for Ament. The freshman finished that one with 11 points on 2-10 shooting with 7 turnovers in a loss to Syracuse.
The idea that Ament would immediately dominate in the college ranks like some other highly-touted freshmen have this season was just never going to be realistic for Ament. “(The college game is) a whole lot harder,” Barnes said after the Syracuse loss, regarding Ament. “And he’s not going to be able to do the things that he did in high school. It’s a process. We knew he’d go through it, but he’s going to have to listen because we’re telling him. Some of it, he’s going to have to go through the fire and he’s going to have to learn when to pick his spots and when not to.”
“He’s Going to Keep Getting Better”
If Nate Ament proceeds to dominate the back half of the season like he did during last Saturday’s win over Alabama, I’m going to look back at January 10 against Florida as the game that started his course correction. That may come as a bit of a surprise considering Tennessee lost that game by 24 points.
Here’s what the final score doesn’t show: Ament was by far Tennessee’s best player, and perhaps the only Vol to put forth a winning effort against the reigning national champions. He hit a pair of 3s, knocked down 5 of his 6 free-throw attempts and was one of the only Vols unafraid to take it directly to the horde of monsters that Florida calls a frontcourt rotation. And despite Tennessee taking its most lopsided loss all year, Barnes was singing a familiar tune.
“Nate’s gonna be fine,” Barnes said. “I’ve said it all along. I don’t know, I’m sure people have gotten on (him), but I wouldn’t trade Nate for anybody. He’s a lot tougher than everybody knows… I was proud of Nate and his mindset today.”
This time, Barnes’ comments were vindicated almost immediately. Since then, a little over 2 weeks ago, Ament has been almost unrecognizable, as if it all just clicked in Gainesville. He put in a good day’s work in a double overtime win over Texas A&M, finding his way to the free throw line for 11 attempts while scoring 23 points with 7 rebounds, a pair of blocks and a pair of assists. Despite a loss, Ament also played well the following week against Kentucky, scoring an efficient 17 points with 5 rebounds and just 1 turnover.
Then came the Alabama game.
One play in particular stands out from this career day for Ament. With the Vols ahead in a tight race, Ament took a pass from Ja’Kobi Gillespie, blew by his defender and finished through contact against Alabama’s Taylor Bol Bowen, earning the and-one. So far, it’s his most impressive play of the season, and it added to what would be a 29-point outing in a 6-point win over Alabama in Tuscaloosa:
Around the time of the Syracuse and Illinois losses mentioned earlier, a lot of folks — myself included, hand up — wondered if the elite, 5-star talent Tennessee championed over the summer was nothing more than a myth. It was especially an especially easy line of thought to arrive at considering the outstanding play from other freshmen with high expectations, such as AJ Dybantsa, Cam Boozer and Darryn Peterson. Now though, I refer back to the question posed at the top of this page: How much better can Nate Ament be for Tennessee basketball?
Well, he’s been right so far. What say you, Rick?
“I know that when expectations are high for a player, sometimes people get disappointed,” Barnes said after the Alabama win. “But we are not one bit disappointed with what he’s done for us all year. He’s going keep getting better. It was just a matter of time to where you felt like he would get the flow, the confidence and the vision to see where and how he needed to attack.”
Ethan Stone is a Tennessee graduate and loves all things college football and college basketball. Firm believer in fouling while up 3.
