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Last season, Byron Eaton was often the smallest man on the court, but he left some big shoes to fill.
Eaton, a third-team All-Big 12 performer as a senior, averaged 14.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 2.2 steals in his final season. But it wasn’t Eaton’s numbers that made the biggest impact, it was his competitive nature, his tenacity and his ability to fearlessly put the outcome of a game in his own hands.
Returning Cowboy players said replacing a player of Eaton’s status is difficult but a freshman from Texas seems confident in his ability to take over the role.
Ray Penn, a Houston native, has already earned the respect of his teammates. It’s not only for his penchant for making big plays, it’s that he plays with a chip on his shoulder. When Penn steps on the court, he has something to prove and his desire to silence his doubters begins long before he laces up his sneakers.
“Every day when I wake up,” Penn said. “I will always be an underdog, that’s all I know.”
Penn isn’t physically imposing at 5-foot-9 and 165-pounds, but before arriving at OSU, he played his biggest games against his stiffest competition.
Penn entered the prestigious Reebok Summer Championships in Las Vegas as a virtual unknown. By the time he was done, he was arguably the hottest commodity in Sin City.
Penn scored 37 points in his opening game of the tournament and followed it with outings of 19 points, 43 points and 44 points to finish with three of the top five scoring performances of the week.
OSU junior forward Marshall Moses said Penn’s ability to use his lack of size as motivation reminds him of another player in a similar situation — himself.
“He’s like a little me, I like him a lot,” Moses said. “He has that little-man syndrome.”
That little-man syndrome helped turn Penn into one of the nation’s top prospects as a senior at Fort Bend Travis High School where he averaged 21.7 points and 4.2 assists. He was rated the No. 9 point guard in the nation by Rivals.com and the No. 29 player overall by Hoopmasters.com.
“That is a guy who can play, he’s a hard worker and we feel real confident about him,” freshman forward Roger Franklin said.
Confidence is not only the word used by his teammates to describe him, but also it was the word coach Travis Ford chose to outline his greatest attribute.
“That’s the thing I like about Ray, he has confidence,” Ford said. “Ray is physically talented and a much better passer than we anticipated, but he is struggling with understanding the offense.”
Ford said his inability to fully grasp the offense has placed him in tight competition with fellow incoming guard Fred Gulley, from Fayetteville, Ark., but he will have his opportunities to earn significant playing time and he will not be handed the role based on his playmaking ability.
“Both (Gulley and Penn) will play a lot of minutes this Saturday,” Ford said. “I’m not going to just play a freshman, I want one of them to step up and take it.”
Junior guard Nick Sidorakis said Penn’s ability to take command of the offense is encouraging but even more impressive is his ability to learn from each practice and improve.
“He’s like a bolt of energy, he’s coming along, he’s getting the game good and he learns from his mistakes,” Sidorakis said.
When OSU opens its basketball season at 7 p.m. Saturday with an exhibition contest against Central Oklahoma, Penn said he knows he will have to do what he has always done — prove his doubters wrong and show he is ready to take command of the point guard position.
“I consider myself a playmaker,” Penn said. “I’m gonna make plays.”
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