When the University of South Alabama’s Mychal Ammons came in as a freshman last season, he knew it wouldn’t be easy.

Not only was he making the move from high school to Division I college basketball, he was doing so while having to learn a new position, transitioning from Vicksburg (Miss.) High School’s all-state center who averaged 21.8 points per game to a ‘3’, or small forward, at the next level.

This new position brought a whole new set of skills needed to succeed. Instead of banging bodies down low in the post and shooting short to intermediate jumpers, he was going to have to dribble, play on the perimeter and work for outside opportunities.

“Because we played him in a new position that he’d never played before, there was a growing process for him to be able to handle the ball more, shoot from outside and make decisions with the ball,” said Jaguar head coach Ronnie Arrow.

The biggest adjustment for Ammons wasn’t getting his body used to the physical style played at the collegiate level—being 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds has something to do with that—but more of a mental one.

“I had to get my mind right to make adjustments, get where I needed to be, not looking to get me a shot but getting my teammates shots, always playing hard and having an open ear to what people are saying and taking it all in,” he said.

After his first two games, it looked as though the growing process wouldn’t take nearly as long as originally expected. In his first career game, when the Jaguars traveled to Mississippi State, he came off the bench to score 15 points on 6 of 9 shooting and tied for the team lead with nine rebounds. “I always feel like I could have done something better or different, but it was a decent game for a freshman,” Ammons remembered.

He followed that performance up with 12 points and seven rebounds and earning a start versus Mobile in his second-ever game. Getting the start so soon wasn’t a shock to him, but not because he thought it should be given to him, but because, “it came from me hustling or diving on floors, because I know that’s what (Coach Arrow) likes to see,” Ammons said. “So I did expect it, but I also expected to work hard for it.”

While he found a regular spot in the starting lineup, success did not carry over. After totaling 12 points against Mobile, he had just 14 in his next five outings combined.

“Most freshmen are going to be up and down, but I wasn’t used to being in that kind of slump,” Ammons said. “It had my spirits down some—I was a freshman and Coach was getting on to me so I let it get to me. But I think it goes along with being a freshman and playing a new spot. It can get kind of frustrating. I was still trying to learn what that position really does and what my position was on the team—was I a scorer or just a defensive player—but it wasn’t a specific thing, he just wanted me to play hard, do my best and give 110 percent.”

“With him, it seems like it was about maturity,” Arrow noted. “If he started out making a jump shot early, his game ended up being pretty good. If made a bad pass or missed a shot, it affected him the rest of the game. The first few plays of the game determined what he did the rest of the game. I think that’s a maturity aspect that he has to work on and learn that if things are going bad at the beginning, he has to play through it.”

A return to the reserve role he played at the beginning of the season paid immediate dividends as he went for 12 points against Alcorn State—his first double-digit scoring game in almost a month—and in the team’s final game before Christmas, he lit up San Diego for a career-high 17 points and doubled his season 3-point total by shooting 2-for-3 from behind the arc.

Ammons’ 3-point shooting—another skill that went unused in high school—took awhile to get going, but when he finally found his touch, he became one of the team’s most accurate long-range bombers. After starting the season 3-for-19 from beyond the arc, he converted 11 of his 25 attempts over the team’s final 13 games. His 44.0 shooting percentage from distance over that span was the highest on the team.

The increased production from 3-point land came down to a number of factors, notably repetition in practice and a more positive mindset, but Ammons doesn’t expect it to become a major part of his repertoire.

“We already have a bunch of shooters—Xavier (Roberson), Antoine (Allen), Freddie (Goldstein) and Trey (Anderson)—and that’s a part of their game being able to shoot the ball,” Ammons said. “I’ll just keep playing hard. I’ll take the ‘3’ when I have it, but I’m not going to force it. I’m looking more at my mid-range game.”

By mid-January Ammons found himself back in the starting lineup and making a difference. By grabbing a career-best 12 rebounds in a road win at Troy, he started a three-game run with double-digits in either scoring or rebounding, and from February through the end of the season, he averaged 15.6 points and 7.8 boards—second best on the squad during that time—including what he calls his best game of the year, a 17-point, eight-rebound performance at home against Western Kentucky.

“I felt like I played hard, I didn’t force any shots and I was going to the boards so I felt like I did everything I had to do to help my team win.”

By the time the end of the season rolled around, Ammons had broken through his freshman adjustment period and had become a steady, reliable performer. He almost singlehandedly gave the Jags an overtime win at Florida Atlantic with a personal-best 26 points and recorded his first double-double in the season finale with 15 points and 12 rebounds.

“It seemed like the game wasn’t as fast and it felt easier,” Ammons commented. “It was part of the adjustment—starting off, I’m a freshman and learning a new position so it was a learning process. At the end of the season I kind of got adjusted to it and it wasn’t hard for me.”

The quest for Ammons and Arrow is to keep the momentum going and carry it over in to next season. It starts with intense workouts in the offseason and an improvement in the skills he’ll need to succeed at his ‘new’ position, which isn’t so new anymore, like decision making and ball-handling. With the team’s upcoming exhibition tour to Canada, Ammons has been afforded 10 extra days of practice to get an early start on the 2012-13 season.

“The biggest area he needs to work on is decision-making with the ball – who’s open, is he open, where to pitch the ball so that he can hit the open man, jumpstop so he doesn’t charge somebody and getting where he needs to be naturally so he’s not thinking as much,” Arrow said. “On his ball-handling skills, we’re working with the cones. Now that we get to play these three games, we’re practicing more and we can do drills with him, so he’s getting fuller practice sessions to develop that rather than having to wait until October.”

For Ammons, the time spent on his perimeter skills has paid off, but he believes there’s still a lot of work to be done.

“I’ve improved,” he said. “The coaches have told me they can see it, but I still think that it needs to be more. I still need to put in a lot more work. It’s a new position—I wasn’t used to carrying the ball the way the rest of the guards were so I had to put extra work in.”

What will this mean for Ammons and the Jaguars come November when the season starts? Arrow’s expectations for Ammons—and his own—are through the roof.

“He should be one of the top two steal guys in the conference and he should be one of the top five offensive rebounders in the conference,” said Arrow. “He should be an all-conference player the next three years he’s in the league. If all of these things come together, there’s no question in my mind he can do that. He’s got to handle adversity, he’s got to learn to play with his athletic ability the whole game. There is nobody in the conference that can keep him off the boards when he truly wants to go get it.”

“My expectations are to lead the conference in steals and rebounding,” Ammons said. “And of course I want to make First Team All-Sun Belt. The only person that can stop me from doing that is me.”

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

—USA—