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OGDEN — In what has become a parade of unheralded-turned-spectacular players in Ogden, Weber State point guard Jerrick Harding is the latest Wildcat to enjoy a breakout campaign worthy of consideration for Big Sky Player of the Year.
An honor that’s become synonymous with the program during the Randy Rahe era, Weber State has produced five conference MVPs — one at each position and as many as the rest of the conference combined — since hiring the former Utah State and Utah assistant as head coach in 2006.
Now in his 12th season in Ogden, Rahe appears to have a potential sixth winner on his hands — something that wasn’t clear just a few short months ago.
“I knew he could score,” Rahe told KSL.com of Harding’s rising star. “I think the efficiency and the rate that he’s scored at has surprised me. He’s probably outdone what I thought he would do. … I knew he could produce, but probably not at this level this quickly."
Rahe said Harding's stamina has been something that has surprised him, particularly with being short on personnel.
“He’s got a lot of stamina to him," Rahe added, "and that’s a lot to be said about a guy that’s not very big and doesn’t weigh a lot.”
Standing at a meager 6-foot-1 and 175 pounds, the diminutive point guard has become the team’s go-to option this season after coming off the bench for 17 minutes a night as a freshman.
It's a development that can't be overstated considering that just a few short months ago, the initial questions of who would lead this version of Weber State were ones Rahe couldn’t answer. In November, he told the Salt Lake Tribune, “We don’t ever really look at it and say ‘this is the guy.’ We try to do it by committee.”
It didn't take long, however, before the idea of a committee gave way to Harding’s sheer force of will. Like the diamonds in the rough that preceded him, he has dazzled in spearheading the scoring and playmaking load on a nightly basis.
While his rapid ascent has been a surprise to most observers, at least a few teammates say they saw a breakout coming.
“The way Jerrick finishes in practice is the exact way he finishes in games, so (the team) kind of knew what was going to happen,” junior center Zach Braxton told KSL.com. “He’s having a tremendous year. It’s fun to play with him. It’s fun to see (Harding’s ability) all the time.”
Now powering a new-look offense as a three-level scorer, Harding is leading the conference in points per game (21.4), effective field goal percentage (59.4), player efficiency rating (25.5), and is second in usage percentage (31.3). Perhaps most impressive, though, has been his ability to marry volume with efficiency despite having his playing time and role more than double in size and responsibility from last season.
Consider this: As a ball-dominant starter in 28 games, 12 of them playing 35 or more minutes, Harding is one of 20 qualifying players (minimum 400 minutes) in the country to have a player efficiency rating north of 25.0 while using 30 percent or more of his team’s offensive possessions, according to sports-reference.com.
On a per-possession basis, Harding is the straw that stirs the drink for Weber State. And, crucially, after months of dominating the conference leaderboard, his performances have begun to transcend the borders of the league.
In January, Harding was added to the watchlist for the Lou Henson Mid-Major National Player of the Year Award, awarded annually to the nation’s finest Division I player at the mid-major level, which includes more than 20 conferences across the United States.
Those who know him well say it’s about time the lightly recruited and oft-overlooked point guard started getting noticed. For context, Harding was famously dismissed by the bigger colleges coming out of high school, including by his hometown school Wichita State, even while averaging nearly 28 points per game at Wichita Southeast High School en route to being named the Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year.
But in truth, Weber State initially overlooked him, too, as he was discovered late in the recruiting cycle by assistant coach Eric Duft — a native of Sterling, Kansas — on the recommendation of a few Midwest coaches. Today, Rahe acknowledges how lucky he was to find Harding, saying that he would be playing at Kansas were he “a couple of inches taller.”
“He’s an amazing player, it’s obviously apparent how good he is,” teammate Brekkott Chapman said. “He’s really just unguardable. If you stop him from getting to the rim, he’ll shoot it. If you stop him from shooting it, he’ll get to the rim. … He’s done amazing.”
Because of the positional likeness and a similarly low-profile coming out of high school, Harding has earned a different pedigree with award season still weeks away: identification with program legend and current Portland Trail Blazers’ point guard Damian Lillard.
When asked about the connection, the soft-spoken guard, for his part, is trying to stay above the noise when addressing those low-hanging fruit comparisons.
“I just try to be the best Jerrick Harding I can be,” he said, while conceding that he, in fact, studies Lillard’s game. “I don’t really pay any attention to the comparisons. I just go out there and try to play my game. I look up to (Lillard) as a player. He does a lot of great things on the court. But I just try to be myself out there.”
For better or worse, the best version of Harding bears a striking resemblance to Lillard. When comparing their sophomore per 40-minute outputs head-to-head, the former has the edge in points (26.6 to 23.2) in addition to matching the latter’s output in steals (1.3) and turnovers (2.8), and nearly in rebounds (4.3 to 4.7).
But if any separation does exist between their games, it might be in Harding’s acrobatics around the basket. This season, the Kansas native is taking 40.5 percent of his shots at the rim and finishing at a 65.7 percent clip, according to hoop-math.com. Comparatively, Lillard took just 35.8 percent of his shots in the same area during his final season at Weber State, and converted them at a markedly lower 59.9 percent rate.
“Jerrick is as good a finisher around the rim as I’ve ever coached,” Rahe said. “Jerrick’s in-between game, middle game, is maybe a tad ahead of Damian or close to it.
“I think Damian, mentality-wise, was a shooting guard when we got him, but he kind of had a point guard mentality with it. Jerrick’s been all ‘I’m a scorer,’” Rahe continued, laughing. “Damian had a little bit more of the point guard mentality with the scoring mentality, where Jerrick’s got the scoring mentality and we’re gonna try to work with him on developing him to be more of a point guard.”
Lillard himself has taken notice of Harding’s exploits. Recently, the 27-year-old All Star tweeted out his endorsement of the point guard, calling him “the best player in the conference” in response to a question submitted by one of his Twitter followers. Today, Harding says the two have spoken, with the former NBA Rookie of the Year offering him advice on “how to be a leader.”
“They’re both high-character and high-integrity,” Rahe explained. “They’re both extremely tough, very competitive and extremely motivated to be as good as they can be. … They both play with a chip on their shoulder. … They’re really similar in all those intangibles.” Dillon Anderson is studying literary journalism as a student at the University of Utah. You can follow him on Twitter @DillonDanderson.
