Shortly before the Southeastern Conference's start last month, Devan Downey met with South Carolina coach Darrin Horn, who clicked on tape of his star guard's all-out play from a year ago.
Back then, the 5-foot-9 Downey played each game with something to prove and convinced all who watched of his enormous talent as he led the Gamecocks to a surprising tie with Tennessee for the league's Eastern Division title. That Downey, the relentless, fierce competitor who would back down to no one, hadn't yet shown up this year.
``You need to go find that guy,'' Horn challenged.
``Hopefully,'' Downey says with a grin, ``I've found him.''
That's apparent to anyone who watched Downey and the Gamecocks take down No. 1 Kentucky.
The smallish senior point guard - described by announcers as ``5-9 in heels'' - has been all but unstoppable in the SEC. The league's leading scorer overall at 22.9 points a game, Downey's gone for nearly 32 a game in seven SEC contests, a rate rarely seen since Pete Maravich averaged an NCAA record 44.5 points for LSU in 1970.
Downey scored 30 against Kentucky on Jan. 26 while outplaying Wildcat freshman star John Wall. He followed that up four nights later with 33, including nine of South Carolina's final 11 points in a 78-77 comeback win over Georgia. Downey's presence alone was enough to change the game, as Georgia coach Mark Fox kept three defenders back to stop a coast-to-coast charge when Dustin Ware stood at the foul line for the Bulldogs in the closing moments.
Instead, Ware missed and South Carolina easily rebounded to secure the win.
And don't forget Downey's dramatic shot at Florida - he spun out of a sideline double-team and hit an impossible banker with 5 seconds left - that would've given South Carolina a victory on Jan. 23 had the Gators' Chandler Parsons not hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
Downey has gone for 30 or more in five of South Carolina's seven SEC games, throwing in an assortment of floaters, banks and drives against defenses geared to stop him.
``He's putting up those teardrops and making SEC coaches cry,'' said Downey's high school coach DeAndre Scott, laughing.
South Carolina (13-8, 4-3) and Downey try to continue their surge Saturday at No. 14 Tennessee, where coach Bruce Pearl is next up to corral the SEC's most dynamic scorer.
``He obviously is in a complete and total zone,'' Pearl said this week. ``He does whatever he wants on the basketball floor and no individual or team has been able to stop him.''
It's been that way for much of Downey's life.
Scott remembers him as a 13-year-old stepping on the floor with the Chester varsity and scoring 21 points his first game, including a clutch basket to force overtime with Rock Hill.
``Some people carry a chip on their shoulder,'' Scott recalls. ``Devan had an entire boulder on there wanting to show people he could play.''
As Downey grew in talent, Scott had to slow him down in workouts or ban him from shooting during scrimmages simply to run practice for the rest of his players. Downey was the state's ``Mr. Basketball,'' eventually taking his game to Cincinnati and coach Bob Huggins.
Before Downey arrived, though, Huggins was out and the Bearcats faced a difficult season of scrutiny. But there was the 17-year-old Downey - ``I couldn't even get in a club,'' he says - leading the team to a 21-13 mark in their first Big East season.
``He took control and never backed down,'' said Andy Kennedy, Cincinnati's interim coach at the time and now the head coach at Ole Miss.
Downey wanted Kennedy to remain at Cincinnati. When that didn't happen, he asked out of his scholarship and returned to South Carolina.
Downey figured to be the backbone of coach Dave Odom's revived program two years ago, and while Downey was voted to the all-SEC first team, the Gamecocks posted their second straight losing season and Odom retired.
Again, Downey faced uncertainty.
Then Horn entered, preaching accountability, up-tempo play and focused defense. Downey bought into Horn's plans and has thrived, finishing third in the SEC last season at 19.8 points a game.
Downey showed his dramatic touch at Rupp Arena, his bucket notching a 78-77 victory that was South Carolina's first there in 12 years.
The Gamecocks and Downey entered this season confident of its first NCAA bid since 2004. But two veteran teammates - forwards Dominique Archie and Mike Holmes - were knocked out before the New Year, Archie to a knee injury and Holmes for violating team rules.
Suddenly, Downey was alone, ``the Gamecocks' first, second and third options,'' as Horn likes to say, surrounded by newcomers and little-used returnees. Then came his heart-to-heart with Horn, who Downey said ``always speaks the truth.''
Downey discovered his competitive fire and, ever since, says the basket looks ``like it's 10 feet wide.''
Downey's focused on keeping South Carolina alive for the NCAA tournament rather than individual accomplishments. The SEC player of the year? A national All-American? ``I can't control that,'' he says repeatedly, ``so I don't worry about it.''
He'll stick with what he can control, putting the ball in the basket like few others.
