Men’s basketball assistant coach Ed Schilling has worked with countless NBA players. But to him, none of the two-decades-worth of elite athletes he has coached at the high school, college, and professional levels have matched Thomas Welsh’s work ethic.
“If there’s a better, more coachable young man in college basketball, I sure haven’t seen him,” Schilling said. “I’ve trained everyone from the number-one pick in the draft to NBA All-Stars, and his attitude and work ethic are second to nobody.”
Welsh, a rising sophomore center, was recently selected as one of 12 members of this year’s USA Men’s U19 World Championship Team, which is currently competing in the FIBA U19 World Championship in Greece. After failing to make the U18 team the year prior, Welsh came to this year’s tryouts with an important year of development under his belt.
“I don’t know if I really expected to make it coming into it, but I just knew that I was a lot more prepared this time coming into it (than last year),” Welsh said. “I thought I was a little more experienced, more confident in myself, and that was big for me.”
Schilling said he saw that confidence help Welsh improve as the seven-foot-tall player garnered more and more minutes throughout his freshman year with the Bruins.
“He’s a guy that’s been a late bloomer and is continuing to get better and better,” Schilling said. “I think this national team experience is just going to allow him to see that he’s as good as any big man in the world. He’s got the size, he’s got skill, and I think more than anything this is going to infuse him with confidence that seems to be growing with each week.”
In the time leading up to the national team tryouts, which were held at the high-altitude United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Welsh spent five days a week working with strength and conditioning coach Wes Long on his endurance. To prepare him to run up and down the court during fast stretches of play, Long put Welsh through interval training that kept him at near-maximum intensity levels for minute-long spans, rather than more typical 15-second bursts. Welsh also used a training mask that simulated the effects of high altitude.
“(Welsh) knows the value of strength and conditioning to his game,” Long said. “He’s a workhorse; he’s asking to do extra work.”
That work ethic, along with his impressive size, could one day translate into an extended NBA career, Schilling said.
“When I first saw Thomas, I said, man, this guy reminds me so much of Eric Montross, a guy who had a long career as a post player in the NBA,” said Schilling, who was a New Jersey Nets assistant coach when Montross played for them in 1997. “I saw him as the type of guy that potentially could be a long-term NBA player, a ten-year pro, because he has size, he has skill, he has great work ethic and is so coachable.”
While Montross was never a star in the NBA, he carved out a eight-season NBA career that was ended by a foot injury. Drafted ninth overall by the Boston Celtics in 1994, Montross made the NBA All-Rookie 2nd Team in his first year and averaged 4.5 points and 4.6 rebounds per game in his career. Although Schilling saw a possible NBA future for Welsh from day one, he thinks Welsh is now beginning to understand just how good he can be.
“He’s one of those kids that always thinks there’s more to learn and more to do, and that’s why he’s going to be great,” Schilling said.
For now, Welsh is primarily focused on trying to bring home a gold medal for the national team, which will seek to defend the U19 gold brought home by the United States at the 2013 world championship by a squad that included recent No. 3 draft pick Jahlil Okafor as well as Elfrid Payton and Marcus Smart, who finished fourth and fifth in this year’s Rookie of the Year voting.
“Everyone out here is an extremely good player, best in their state, best in their high school, best in their college,” Welsh said. “Everyone’s really playing hard and competing every day so it’s been a lot of fun to go at these guys all the time.”
One of two centers selected to the roster, Welsh said he and the team’s other big men will try to take advantage of international rules to boost their team on both ends of the floor.
“You can goaltend the ball and you can tap it off the rim once it hits,” Welsh said. “If me and the other bigs can acclimate to (that), it would be big for us to get some baskets just by tipping it in or getting the ball out of there when they shoot.”
He will also bring the same standout traits he provides in the American game, which Schilling said include top-notch defensive ability. Schilling pointed to advanced metrics that indicate Welsh, who averaged 1.1 blocks per game as a freshman, was maybe the most effective freshman post player defensively.
“Because of his size, I think he can become a very good rim protector,” Schilling said. “But I think he’s going to be able to defend his position because he does work so hard and he’s one of those guys that can defend pick-and-rolls; he can guard his man in the post, and I think he’s going to become a better shot blocker as he continues to develop.”
As Welsh progresses toward an NBA in which Warriors seven-footer Andrew Bogut was recently benched for much of the finals in favor of “small-ball” lineups that allowed for defensive switching and flexibility, Schilling said the big man has the quickness to hedge or trap pick-and-rolls, slowing down the ball handler enough to snuff out an attack.
On offense, Welsh will be expected to take on a larger role next year at UCLA after averaging just 3.8 points per game in somewhat limited minutes this past year.
“He’s a guy who’ll do whatever you ask him to do,” Schilling said. “He goes and screens and he rolls and gives a big target when he rolls. And the other thing is he’s got a very good 15- to 17-foot jump shot, so now when he rolls, he doesn’t have to roll for layups, he can roll for jump shots too.”
Schilling said Welsh must continue to improve his rebounding and mobility, but the assistant coach is not too worried.
“He’s one of those guys that gets better before your eyes,” Schilling said. “He just gets better day after day.”