Bearing a black eye, 6-foot-7-inch junior forward Nathan Dieudonne strolled into the athletic communications office and had a seat, ready to talk about his inherited task as a leader of the Boston University men’s basketball team.
“I just got an elbow from one of my good friends,” Dieudonne said, addressing the bruise reassuringly.
What isn’t assured — to Dieudonne or anyone else — is how this year’s fresh-faced Terrier squad will fare, or how long it will take to reclaim the Patriot League supremacy that last year’s team achieved.
The 2014-15 Terriers, though, will bear little resemblance to last year’s squad, as it works to construct a new identity. Last season’s seniors — guard D.J. Irving and forwards Dom Morris and Travis Robinson — along with transferred star guard Maurice Watson Jr., leave BU without its top three scorers from 2013-14 and are in search for new leadership.
“In terms of Travis, Dom, and D.J. and them leaving, it threw [junior guard] John [Papale], [junior forward] Justin [Alston] and me into automatic leadership roles,” Dieudonne said. “We’ve been here for a few years, and I know the coaching staff well enough. With a lot of young guys coming up, us three had to focus on becoming more vocal leaders and doing things by example, and not just for our own minutes but so the young guys fall in line.”
Dieudonne came to Boston from Louisville, Kentucky, about an hour’s drive from preseason No. 1 University of Kentucky. Sports consumed him from a young age, having grown up with three athletic siblings and a father who played football for the Air Force Academy.
Yet basketball didn’t become a clear part of Dieudonne’s future until after his freshman year at Trinity High School. Having been “mainly a soccer player,” as he described, he made his school’s varsity team in his first year and became the starting goalkeeper. Despite his success at the position, Dieudonne’s allure toward basketball caused him to cross over from soccer fully.
With Dieudonne, the Trinity basketball team grew close and began to distinguish itself throughout the state.
“We all grew up playing together,” Dieudonne said. “Everyone knew their role was a big part of [the success], and everyone knew what to expect. It was comfortable, but it was also competitive. We were fighting each other, but it was a pushing each other to get better kind of thing.”
By the end of his senior year, Dieudonne had conquered — on both an individual and team level — high school basketball in his state. In 2012, Trinity won its first state basketball championship and its captain, Dieudonne, was named Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball (a title held by former NBA players such as Wes Unseld and Allan Houston) and earned a place on the All-State First Team.
“We were just really good, there’s not much to it,” Dieudonne said. “We were just better than everyone else.”
After becoming a state champion, Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball headed for pursuits outside the state borders, garnering attention from schools on the East Coast such as Yale University and Lehigh University.
“[The recruiting process] was tough for me,” Dieudonne said. “There were a lot of mid-majors, on the same level as BU, so it was hard to differentiate where to go or where to even visit.
“The thing is, I came up here, and I got to know some of the guys who were on the team that were in my grade like Mo, and [BU] Coach [Joe] Jones and the other coaches were really cool about stuff. And I think that’s why I ended up coming here.”
Upon arriving in Boston, Dieudonne dealt with the twofold challenge of adjusting to BU: converting from a rural to an urban lifestyle — “I’ve probably walked more in the past three years than I have in my whole life,” he remarked — and finding a place on an already successful Terrier team.
“It was a really competitive community,” Dieudonne said. “There were a lot of guys that were here and knew how to win. They won the American East their freshman year, D.J. and them. They knew how to play.
“Everything was off the bat really competitive, everyone was fighting for a position. Even pickup was tough. Practice was tough. Everything was a battle for minutes. I was comfortable with it, but it was tough as a basketball player.”
Despite the competition, Dieudonne managed to get on the court as a freshman, averaging 4.5 points and 3.4 rebounds in 17.1 minutes per game.
As a sophomore last season, Dieudonne and the Terriers switched conferences to the Patriot League, where the team sprinted to the top of the standings and remained for the season. Dieudonne averaged 5.2 points and 4.7 rebounds per game over the season, while shooting .508 from the floor.
After winning the regular season title, BU was favored to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Ultimately, the Terriers fell in the conference final to American University on March 12, and had to settle for an appearance in the National Invitation Tournament.
“It was a rollercoaster ride,” Dieudonne said. “We didn’t really end the conference [schedule] like we wanted to, but once we got to the conference tournament we turned it up. We were playing really well, it was a lot of fun.
“Then the American game [in the final], I don’t know, just different stuff obviously didn’t work out. I think the emotions were so high after winning the regular season championship and after winning the first few games in the tournament, [the emotions] just ran out.”
Over the summer, the team traveled to Italy, primarily for basketball, but with time to enjoy the surroundings as well.
“The teams weren’t really as good as we were hoping,” Dieudonne said. “But it was good for the young guys to get confidence that we can win games, for them to play together and see how everything works. It was a lot of sightseeing and culture, and a lot of the guys, like myself, wouldn’t get the opportunity to do something like that without basketball.”
Dieudonne, along with classmates Papale and Alston, will lead the younger players into the start of the season, which will begin for BU on Sunday against Northeastern University. Another highlight on the Terriers’ schedule will be Nov. 21, when the team travels to Kentucky to play the nationally top-ranked Wildcats. For Dieudonne, the trip will serve as both a homecoming as well as a reminder of success — his last time playing at the Wildcats’ Rupp Arena, he became a high school state champion.
“I’m really excited going back there,” he said.
For now, Dieudonne is both anxious and conservative as he looks forward to the upcoming season. He said the Terriers are currently a project, but still has the chance to surprise any doubters.
“Basically, we’re a two-year team,” Dieudonne said. “We’re going to have the same group of guys for 2 years. Definitely to get back to the conference championship game would be my goal. That feeling was terrible, losing.”
