Josh Odem could be one of the best basketball guards in the Southern Conference.
He has the natural ability and has displayed it at times, including during the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's second-half run in Saturday's loss to Murray State.
The sophomore has both sparkled and fizzled during the Mocs' 4-6 season, which has resulted in additional gray hairs for coach John Shulman.
Odem just plays with what he was born with - athleticism, instinct and a high basketball IQ.
"I have to figure out my work ethic and get that right," said Odem, who missed the team meeting Monday because he was taking a final exam. "I have to change that. It's what I'm trying to do now, go hard every day."
Odem's sometimes lackadaisical effort was never more apparent than during the season opener at Tennessee, a game in which he wanted to shine considering he attended Science Hill High School in Johnson City.
In that game, he played 20 minutes, scored five points and had three turnovers, including UTC's most careless of the season when he tried to catch a simple perimeter pass with one hand and lost it out of bounds.
"It came off my hand wrong," Odem said. "But that game taught me that my work ethic has to get better. Everybody out here is working, and if you don't work you can't reach your full potential."
He flashed that potential Saturday against Murray State in McKenzie Arena.
Odem had the ball on the left wing and didn't hear Shulman screaming to get the ball to point guard Keegan Bell to run a set play. Odem took off toward the basket and tossed a wrap-around layup off the glass.
On the next possession, he cut backdoor and scored on another reverse, which cut MSU's lead to four points with more than eight minutes to play in a game the Mocs once trailed by 19 points.
They were jaw-dropping plays that highlighted his natural skills and had starting shooting guard Ricky Taylor up off the bench cheering and hollering.
"I was excited and happy for him because we needed those buckets," Taylor said. "He was like Superman, hanging in the air, on one of those plays."
But the guy who made those Superman plays also has played like Lois Lane at times this season. Nevertheless, it's all balanced out to a 6.9 points per game average for Odem.
"He's got amazing talent, great basketball IQ, and if things would catch up, he'd be a complete player," Shulman said. "He hasn't figured out that you have to go hard every day in practice - and that's not something we haven't talked about before - so that holds him back.
"He's got a chance to be a really good SoCon player, but he's not close to his potential at this moment."
Which is why he could be one of the SoCon stars in the future but isn't a star of the present.
"It makes you mad when he shows those flashes," Shulman said, "because you'd think that if he can do it more than once, he can do it all the time. He shows flashes of being very good but also flashes things that make you pull your hair out."
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6484. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/UchiyamaCTFP.