Garrison Keeslar spent a good portion of his first few months at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga recovering from hip surgery, which allowed him to get acclimated with his new teammates.
It was already a period of transition for the fifth-year senior, an Ohio native who had spent his previous four seasons at Division II Walsh University. Since he couldn’t play upon his arrival this past summer, he sat and he watched.
He also learned. He saw what teammates were good at and where they may struggle, and how he could fit into the plans of the team.
But his takeaway from watching last summer was that he likely wouldn’t be “the guy” at UTC, a role primarily reserved for senior guard Trey Bonham and junior guard Honor Huff. But having been a productive player at Walsh — he scored over 1,200 points, had 630 rebounds and 434 assists and was first-team all-conference three times over a four-year career — he knew he could contribute to a team that has expectations to win in March and advance to the NCAA tournament.
A lot of Keeslar’s approach comes from his mindset. He graduated from Walsh with a degree in Data Analytics, a major that the school’s website says “students will learn to use their analytical abilities to transform data into insightful, actionable knowledge, leading to better decisions and better business outcomes.”