The dream for Rodrick Sikes' entire life was to play Division I basketball, but as a senior at St. Martin (Miss.) High School, he had nowhere to go.

Despite averaging 19.4 points per game and being named honorable mention all-state as a senior, the Ocean Springs, Miss., native received more scholarship offers from junior colleges (3) than he did Division I schools (0). He was even told by a future college coach that he wasn't good enough.

Sikes admittedly got discouraged. He faced an uncertain future and confronted the possibility that his dream would go unrealized. Unfazed, he took inspiration wherever he could find it, using personal stories like Jimmy Butler, who spent his freshman season at a junior college before enrolling at Marquette and becoming an elite NBA player.

"My mindset was to operate with a chip on my shoulder every day," Sikes said. "I had to find some kind of common ground to keep me uplifted and see people who have made it from the junior college level."

He decided on Southwest Mississippi Community College in Summit, but success had to wait. He spent almost the entire season coming off the bench behind another future Division I student-athlete in Lafayette Rutledge, who went on to play for current South Alabama head coach Richie Riley at Nicholls State.

Sikes bided his time and waited for his opportunity. It finally came just before the 2016 Mississippi Association of Community & Junior Colleges Tournament.

"We were the last seed and one of our starters got hurt," Sikes recalled. "It was unfortunate, but I told myself that this was my opportunity. So I cracked the starting lineup for the tournament. We won three games in three days, I was the MVP of the tournament and I averaged 26 points."

Unfortunately, that breakout performance didn't impress any Division I coaches, so Sikes returned to SMCC for his sophomore campaign.

Sikes dedicated himself to working as hard as he could during the offseason, doing beach workouts in 95-degree heat to get mentally stronger. To him, that was the key to success.

"I told myself I'm skilled enough to play with anybody, it's just the mental aspect. If I get the mental aspect of the game, then I can do anything with basketball."

The extra work paid off. He averaged 22.0 points per contest and converted 80 times from behind the 3-point arc, while tying the school record of eight in a game twice. His scoring average ranked ninth in NCJAA Division I.

The watershed moment that season came in a win over a nationally-ranked Jones County Junior College. He went 7 for 11 from 3-point land for a season-best 38 points in front of a gym full of Division I coaches, including the one who told him in high school that he wasn't good enough.

After the game, that coach – South Alabama's Russ Willemsen – was the first one Sikes saw outside the locker room.

"He introduced himself and the first thing I told him was, 'I remember you,'" Sikes said. "It was a 'I told you I could do it' moment."

The offers started pouring in. By the end of the season he had 26 scholarship offers and took visits to South Alabama, Central Michigan and Morehead State. Willemsen's initial reluctance actually worked out in the end; Sikes said when the recruiting process picked up again, it was "like friends reuniting."

Sikes was named first team all-state and all-region, but the biggest honor came after he had signed with South Alabama.

"I was working out with my assistant coach getting ready to come here and my phone starts blowing up. That's when I got the notification that I was a junior college all-American, which was a huge deal to me. My dad has very high expectations of me. Any time my sophomore year when he would call me, he would say, 'How are you doing, all-American?' He always called me all-American and told me when there are things you want in life, you have to speak it. Once you speak it, you can act on it. Once I got that call, I called my dad and cried. I told him that I made the all-American list and he said, 'I told you that you can do it.' I had to prove myself wrong that I could do it."

The transition to Division I basketball didn't go as smoothly as Sikes imagined. Thanks to an "entitled" mindset, he started slowly and was even considered for a redshirt due to being undersized. He began the season coming off the bench, and after scoring four points in the season opener, he averaged 14.3 in his next four, hitting double-digits each time.

A home game against Stetson would be his last in a reserve role for quite a while. He poured in 32 points and hit seven 3-pointers. The final one came with 2.6 seconds left to send the game into overtime.

"One thing I remember is (head coach Matthew) Graves came to me at halftime and said 'Keep doing what you're doing and don't be afraid to shoot.' I told him, 'You don't have to tell me twice.'" On the game-tying 3-pointer, Sikes said, "That was a big moment for me because I've never hit a game-winning shot. That wasn't a game-winning shot but it was as close as it gets."

His Stetson performance was one of 19 consecutive games in double-digit points. He closed out the 2017 calendar year with his best stretch of play yet: a 30.7 scoring average over three games – the final two against league opponents Georgia State and Georgia Southern – to earn Sun Belt Player of the Week honors.

That hot stretch was thanks to a renewed mental focus, similar to what he went through prior to his sophomore season at Southwest Mississippi. He leaned on a motivational speech from Eric Thomas called "What's Your Why?" that focuses on having a purpose in what you do.

Sikes took that to heart. He placed pictures of everything that was important to him – family and close friends, including one that had passed away – on a board by his door so he saw it every time he entered or left his room.

"I'll never get complacent or think I can take a play off," Sikes said. "I not only have to do it for myself, I have to do it for them as well. I think that turned up my intensity going into conference play and that's why I had a big spark at the start."

When the season was over, he had averaged a team-high 18.7 points and set the school record for 30-point games in a season with five. He was voted Second Team all-Sun Belt by the league's head coaches, validating all the hard work over the previous three years.

"In a sense it was an 'I'm here' moment," Sikes said. "People didn't look at the juco kid coming out of Mississippi, nobody expected me to make an impact, but the more I prove people wrong, each time is an 'I'm here' moment"

His individual accolades didn't match up with the team's success and a coaching change led to Riley taking over the basketball program in March. Riley's coaching style focuses heavily on the mental obstacles that the game brings, which meant an intense offseason conditioning program designed to push the team past their limit.

"The playing style that Coach Riley wants, goes past the physical side, like shooting," Sikes stated. "His playing style starts mentally. All of the stuff before the season was challenging you mentally – the sprints, the road game Fridays, carrying logs and cinder blocks – challenged us mentally because he told us we only won one road game last year. He said we had to be road tough to win at home. That's the mentality we're trying to have."

Riley calls Sikes "compassionate and caring" and acknowledges that the two of them have completely different personalities. While Riley is serious and intense, Sikes has arguably the most relaxed nature of anyone on the team, which belies his assertiveness on the court.

"Most guys that are very aggressive offensively and have that killer instinct scoring the ball are usually harder-shelled," Riley noted. "He's extremely laid back off the court and a personality that's a joy to be around every day. When he gets out there he has that killer instinct to score the ball. I don't want him to ever lose who he is off the court. He's great; he has a personality that people like. He doesn't ever need to lose that, but I challenge him all the time to be tougher on the court and have that chip on your shoulder and attitude when he's playing."

"He wants me to be a vocal leader," Sikes said. "That's one thing I'm trying to work on because I'm one of two seniors on the team. He feels like if I speak up and with the status I hold on the team, people will listen. Sometimes they need to hear from somebody other than a coach. If they hear from their peers, maybe they'll listen. When we're getting punched in the mouth, to grab the guys and tell them it's going to be OK, next play."

Sikes has flourished under Riley and ranks among the conference's leaders in scoring and 3-pointers once again. He recorded his sixth career 30-point game earlier this year vs. Southeast Missouri, placing him in a tie for second in school history in that category, two away from the record.

As Sikes continues on this pace, he heads towards a second straight all-Sun Belt nod, a remarkable achievement for someone barely recruited out of high school.

"I definitely feel like I still have something to prove. One thing Coach Riley told me is you have to operate every single day like someone is trying to take your dreams away. That's the way I'm starting to operate. Somebody would want to have my spot as the starting shooting guard at South Alabama. That's the way I operate now. I'll always have that chip on my shoulder; it keeps me going and makes me want to prove people wrong every single day."

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