Once an issue, Nash now a model of consistency

Racing into the open court, Cezar Guerrero scanned the floor and spotted an ideal target. His eyes widened.

Flanked to his left, with little resistance from the Texas defense, was Markel Brown – OSU's sophomore guard who is nationally recognized for high-flying dunks.

The decision was easy.

Without thought, Guerrero threw the lob, skying it toward Brown's general vicinity with the crowd sensing an imminent result.  

Suddenly, an unexpected recipient entered the picture.

Le'Bryan Nash sliced in front of Brown, snared the ball and threw in a one-hand hammer, completing the back end of a spectacular freshman-to-freshman alley-oop.

"I wanted the ‘oop so bad," Nash said. "I wanted to be part of Lob Stilly. I wanted to be part of the town."

And finally he was.

Despite a rapid dunk movement from OSU's athletic underclassmen, locally referred to as Lob Stilly, Nash has been feeling left out.

Recently, he has been dishing out the lobs, but not finishing them. After Saturday's acrobatic slam, his teammates said he had finally been accepted.

"We like to joke with LB and tell him, ‘I didn't know there could be a McDonald's Slam Dunk Champ with a 10-inch vertical,'" senior Keiton Page said. "But when LB wants to jump, he can jump."

In a nutshell, that's been the book on Nash.

When he's tuned in and determined, his supreme talent flourishes. When he checks out mentally, it can be an on-court liability.

Good Le'Bryan and bad Le'Bryan. In nonconference play, you never knew which one would show up.

One game, Nash would shoot 9-20 in Madison Square Garden against Pittsburgh, scoring 18 points and looking like the best player on the floor.

The next, he would look wide-eyed and confused, throwing up wild shots, turning it over and shooting 2-15 against New Mexico.

"He's still a freshman," coach Travis Ford said. "I think earlier in the year I'm sure he was thinking, ‘Wow, this is not quite as easy as maybe I thought it was going to be.'"

For 18 years, Nash had been the unquestioned star. Basketball came easy, attention came in bunches.

Suddenly, he had hit a rough patch. Inconsistency led to a reduction in minutes and a brief removal from the starting lineup. Against Virginia Tech, Nash went scoreless in 11 ineffective minutes off the bench.

"My low point was during that Virginia Tech game," Nash said. "It was a struggle because I was so on and off."

But, as teammates departed and a fanbase imploded, Nash stayed the course. He took advice from coaches, chatted regularly with his mother and understood the freshman process, even while others didn't.

"You have to give him credit on how he has handled it because I was on him brutally," Ford said. "Challenging him and sitting him on the bench on national television and not starting him and he handled it. He is a smart guy. Smart enough guy to know that it's not anybody else's fault here."

And like his coaches promised, the consistency came.

After slowly improving during a rigorous nonconference schedule, Nash took off in Big 12 play.

In three of the first five conference games, Nash put up a career-high 21 points. One week later, he bested that, dropping 27 points on No. 2 Missouri and leading the Cowboys to an upset.

It was his turning point.

Including that win, Nash has scored double-digits in eight straight games, averaging 15.6 points and five rebounds.

Even more impressive, he has brought consistent energy on both sides, coming up with key blocks and taking crucial charges.

"I don't think I ever doubted myself," Nash said. "I just keep positive people around me. When negative people start talking negative, you need to get away from me. I don't really like negativity; I like a positive life."