AJ Clayton's Grown Into His Own
3/7/2024 4:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball
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ATHENS, Ohio — Junior AJ Clayton (Roseville, Ohio) set his feet behind the arc with just under 10 minutes to go in the second half of Ohio's game against Buffalo on Tuesday (March 5) as the ball flew from his hands. It'd almost become his signature touch, but it wasn't always.
AJ Clayton admits that he was not a 3-point shooter when he first came to Ohio. Although 95% of his shots were from beyond the arc his freshman year, Clayton was not confident they would fall. He honestly wasn't sure if any of his shots would fall.
"I couldn't shoot until I got here," Clayton said. "That was something I really worked on. I was always big, so I kind of just never really worked on shooting that much. It wasn't my specialty."
Mastering his shooting was one of the first things Clayton added to the to-do list when he early enrolled at Ohio four months and a day after he turned 17 years old. It was easy to get into the post at 6-foot-8 in high school, but college was a little different. Clayton needed to work on getting around them and finding new spots to score from.
Clayton quickly realized everyone was stronger than they looked on TV within his first few weeks. The bigs were like brick walls he'd need to knock down to get to the basket.
"That was the biggest struggle, the physicality. A lot of high schools don't have like a proper weight training program like we do so like adjusting to that and really buying into that was huge to try and counteract the physicality," he said.
Over the past three seasons, Clayton has adapted to become more versatile on offense. He's not afraid to go up for a layup or let a 3-pointer fly and it makes it hard for opponents to keep track of him. Most traditional five men aren't used to guarding a big that can go inside and outside like Clayton can.
He set a new career high that night at Buffalo with seven 3-pointers equating for almost all of his 23 points. So far this season, Clayton has the third-most 3-pointers made in the Mid-American Conference with 70 and counting. However, he remains well-rounded with the third-best field goal percentage on Ohio's roster at 51.8%
Clayton has come a long way from when he first checked in against Belmont in November 2021. He still has days where he feels like that 17 year-old again, but not so much on the court. Clayton's traded shooting for the George Forman grill.
"I've definitely matured a lot. My parents helped me with everything throughout my whole life, and still helped me with a lot but like, especially the last eight months where I've had to learn how to cook. It's lots of FaceTime calls with my mom or dad trying to figure out 'Is this done?' 'Can I eat it safely?' 'What am I supposed to do for this?' 'What should I buy at the grocery store?' A lot of those calls," Clayton said." Now I know what to do, I know how to cook a little bit."
Clayton has come out of his shell and with that has come a tenacious shooter. His current and former teammates still like to remind him of his early days with the Bobcats — especially Ben Vander Plas, who sends Clayton a video of him at a little Bobcats camp every July — but Clayton knows that he's not that person anymore. He's grown into the big the Bobcats needed.
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