UW's Quincy Pondexter finally fulfills his potential

LOS ANGELES — Quincy Pondexter returns this week to the land of the awakening.

The place where he was given a brutal dose of reality that set him on a two-year course of self-awareness and has ultimately shown he just might be who he thought he was all along.

"It's coming together like many people thought it would have in the beginning and like I thought it might have in the beginning," says the junior forward who will help lead the Washington Huskies into the Pac-10 men's basketball tournament here at Staples Center today.

"But it's coming together. And it's not how you start, it's how you finish."

Pondexter's career actually started three seasons ago about how he imagined.

A consensus top-100 recruit out of Fresno, the 6-foot-6 Pondexter was part of UW's much-hyped Class of 2006 that also featured Spencer Hawes and was expected to keep the Huskies annually going to the Sweet 16.

He scored 13 or more points in 10 of his first 11 games and was UW's leading scorer heading into conference games. And all those rumblings that maybe he'd a one-and-done guy — rumblings he readily admits went through his mind on a regular basis — didn't seem so far-fetched.

Then came a trip to USC and UCLA to open the Pac-10 season, and a brutal jolt of realism. When UW returned home the next week, Pondexter was on the bench. Coaches were trying to send the message that there were some things he still had to learn to become a complete player.

Pondexter scored just 16 points in the two games and looked overmatched as UW lost both games.

More than two years later, he remembers that trip as a turning point in his career.

"Just playing against veteran guys like [UCLA's] Arron Afflalo and [USC's] Nick Young, I just didn't do that well," he recalled. "And after that I remember I got benched for a little while. It was just a real learning process and I had to look back and go, 'Whoa, it's not your time yet, but you have nothing to worry about because it's going to be all right one day. It's all going to work out perfectly one day.' "

And in Pondexter's mind, it has done just that.

Driven to avoid repeating the early stumbles, he has earned a reputation as one of UW's hardest workers. He often shows up early to practice to work on his shooting or other parts of his game with Huskies assistants.

And after three years at UW — two more than he might have imagined — it's all paying off.

He's averaging a career-best 11.6 points for the Huskies as they enter the postseason as the Pac-10 regular-season champs, and is coming off the best stretch of basketball of his career with 10 straight games in double figures.

More important to UW coach Lorenzo Romar is the way Pondexter is playing. He used to score, but might not defend or rebound all that well.

"He makes winning plays more now, whether it's a jumper or a drive to the basket or a rebound," Romar said.

And when things don't go well, Pondexter doesn't let it affect him.

"The emotion is still there," Romar said. "He just doesn't allow those emotions to take him out."

Strangely, Pondexter might have been overrated for so long that now he might be underrated.

"I get that sense a lot," said Pondexter with a laugh. "It's pretty funny how it's changed from being an overmatched and overrated freshman and 18 years old and 180 pounds. It just seems like it's crazy how much pressure people put on me at that time, and I didn't really realize it that I wasn't really as good as I thought I was, and it's great to see how everything is coming around right now."

Against Arizona, Pondexter quietly became the 34th player in school history to surpass 1,000 points, a ladder he figures to climb substantially next season when he should takes on an even greater role with the departures of seniors Jon Brockman and Justin Dentmon.

Pondexter is no longer worried about the future. Much like his UW career, it'll take care of itself.

"I don't even think about that right now," he said of the NBA. "I'm just thinking about winning one game."

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com