INDIANAPOLIS — Garrison Keeslar will always be known as a team player.
Gritty. Grimy. Solid defender. Shooter…OK. But a guy willing to do whatever it took, which is special considering the 6-foot-7 forward transferred to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga having scored 1,209 points in his four-year career at Division II Walsh University.
His body? Essentially broken down, to the point where when he came out of games, he rarely sat down, choosing to stand at the end of the bench.
How much of a team player was he? With a minute to go in Thursday night’s National Invitation Tournament championship game against UC Irvine at Hinkle Fieldhouse, Keeslar passed up a wide-open layup and instead opted to pass the ball to an open Honor Huff in the corner, in a game the Mocs were trailing 84-83 at the time.
“Yeah, sometimes Coach (Dan Earl) even tells me I’m a little too passive,” Keeslar said. “I see an open layup, but I see Honor for a wide-open three and I’m like, ‘This is the best shooter in the country, I might as well get him one.'”