June 22, 2018
By Greg Ostendorf
AuburnTigers.com
AUBURN, Ala. -- Before sitting down to an interview for this story, Auburn men's basketball strength and conditioning coach Damon Davis was in the weight room working out with a player. The player was struggling to finish a set, and there was Davis -- five months before the season starts -- pushing that player to do the rep and finish his set.
Fans typically only see the games. They care about wins and losses. But it's the work in the weight room and in practice that leads to more wins than losses.
One day, a player might wake up, look in the mirror and see muscle that wasn't there before. Or when the season comes, he might have a more explosive first step because of the work that was put in during the offseason. It's why head coach Bruce Pearl puts such an emphasis on training and why Davis has become such an important part of the program.
"I'm never going to take credit for their success because it's like I tell these guys all the time -- at the end of the day, I give them a blueprint," Davis said. "They're the ones that have to come in and put the work in. They're the ones that have to sacrifice their time to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier and eat breakfast and do the little things.
"At the end of the day, I'm just a facilitator in that process. So when guys buy into that and start doing those things and you see those changes happen, it's pretty fun."
Davis got into strength training because he saw how much it improved his performance as an athlete. He walked on as a wrestler at Northern Illinois, and by the time he was a senior, he was earning scholarship money and holding his own against Division I competition.
Now, 16 years later, he's playing a major role in helping kids go from high school basketball stars to playing in the NBA -- the dream for any young basketball player.
"My ultimate goal is to help each one of these guys reach what their goals are," Davis said. "If their goal is to play in the NBA, then my job is to help facilitate that goal and help them understand what it's going to take for them to get there."
Auburn didn't have any players taken in Thursday's NBA draft, but that could change this time next year as three of the four players who declared early for the draft returned to school. The most intriguing prospect is big man Austin Wiley who was invited to the NBA combine and tested off the charts physically thanks in large part to his work with Davis.
Wiley was in the top four for the center position in standing vertical (28 inches), max vertical (33.5 inches), shuttle run (3.27 seconds) and three quarter sprint (3.3 seconds). His five percent body fat was lowest among all centers.
"Coach D's a great coach," Wiley said. "He helped me change my body. The weight was always there, but the muscle wasn't always there and everywhere it needed to be. He helped transfer that. He helped transfer a lot of muscle throughout my whole body, and it's beneficial to how I play today."
Though Jared Harper and Bryce Brown weren't invited to the combine, the two guards impressed scouts at a private workout with the Atlanta Hawks. In terms of lateral quickness, it was some of the best numbers posted by any player that worked out.
"That goes 100 percent to [Davis]," Harper said. "He's worked me since Day 1 when I got here and helped me notice what I have to do to get better. Just pushed me every single day to be able to go out and do those things."
The other reward for Davis, the reason he loves what he does, goes back to March when Auburn clinched the SEC regular-season championship and just seeing the smiles on the players' faces. It was a special moment for everybody, but especially the strength coach who had been with the program as long as anybody -- he spent two years under the previous coach.
"It's a lot like training," Davis said. "Just seeing the program grow and progress to what we did last year, it's been a lot of fun. Even Coach Pearl's first couple years, we were still building and struggling. So to kind of see where it's gone to is pretty special."
That training has been integral to the growth of the program. Just look at last year's team.
Brown was always a good 3-point shooter. But last year, he was stronger and more explosive because of the training and the work in the weight room, and it helped him go from a good player to one of the SEC's best. The junior averaged nearly 16 points a game.
"[Davis] has helped me tons," Brown said. "I could actually see stuff paying off year by year, but my sophomore year to my junior year, that jump where I saw my game increase -- it was exploding off one foot, able to get to the rack quicker. I didn't have that quick first step my freshman and sophomore years. So I feel like he's helped my all-around game."
Harper, who Davis calls "a poster boy for consistency," has put on 20 pounds of muscle in college which is not easy for somebody listed at 5-foot-10. But he, too, saw his game elevate to another level last season as he emerged as one of the league's best point guards.
When Horace Spencer started out at Auburn, he was a great shot blocker, but as lean as he was, he got pushed around inside. However last year, when fellow center Anfernee McLemore got injured, Spencer emerged and more than held his own in the paint because of how much stronger and powerful he had become in the three years working with Davis.
"He helped develop my body a lot," Spencer said. "I might not seem like I got a lot bigger, but I got a lot stronger from the workouts we do. I'm really a slim dude, but I'm not weak at all. I can hold my own in the post and anywhere else on the court."
That same transformation is now taking place with players like Chuma Okeke, Malik Dunbar and Samir Doughty, who are all going through their first full off-season at Auburn. When fans see them on the court again this coming season, they're going to look like different players.
That extra rep? Finishing their set during a workout in June? It all matters.
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @greg_ostendorf