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Shortly after North Florida’s season ended two years ago, men’s basketball coach Matthew Driscoll met with one of his returning guards.
Driscoll wanted Chaz Lanier to understand what was possible for him the following season if he strived to prepare himself.
Lanier was his own worst enemy in those days, a late bloomer who worked tirelessly but constantly doubted himself. He still perceived himself as the kid who was once too short and scrawny to play varsity basketball, who even after a growth spurt finished his senior season without a single scholarship offer.
In his first three seasons at North Florida, Lanier made a modest impact as a role player who never averaged more than 4.7 points per game. Now the veteran guards who started in front of him were either graduating or transferring. Driscoll wanted Lanier to know that this was his moment, that the following year’s team belonged to him.
The end-of-season evaluation that Driscoll handed Lanier said, “You have set it up to have an incredible breakout year with no limitations in front of you except yourself.” Driscoll concluded the evaluation with the following prediction: “Man, hope you see what’s in front of you because it could be an amazing story for us to tell for years after you’re gone!!!”
“At the time, I really didn’t see the vision that I guess Coach Driscoll had,” Lanier told Yahoo Sports. “He always saw the light shining bright inside of me, and I guess I didn’t see that in myself just yet. For him to say that, it was definitely a confidence booster. I mean, he called the whole thing.”
It’s hard for even Lanier to believe how his life has changed since that meeting with Driscoll two years ago. He has traded North Florida blue for Tennessee orange. He has evolved into one of college basketball’s most feared perimeter shooters. And he’ll lead the second-seeded Vols against SEC rival Kentucky on Friday night in an NCAA tournament round of 16 matchup with a spot in the Elite Eight at stake.
Stories like Lanier’s are a reminder that this year’s heavyweight Sweet 16 isn’t as devoid of charming underdogs as it’s been made out to be. The 16 teams still competing for a national title may each hail from power conferences, but Cinderella stories still exist, if you know where to look for them.
Some of the best players in this year’s NCAA tournament were overlooked recruits who began their college careers in small-conference obscurity. There are Sweet 16 standouts who got their starts anywhere from Yale, to Belmont, to Iona, to Drexel, to Ohio before showcasing their talents and transferring to name-brand programs.
Morehead State was one of only three Division I schools to offer Johni Broome in high school, and as Eagles coach Jonathan Mattox recently told Yahoo Sports, “If anybody tells you they envisioned what Johni would become, they’re lying.” The 6-10 big man worked tirelessly to transform himself from a redshirt candidate as a Morehead State freshman into a first-team All-American at Auburn four-plus years later.
Alabama forward Grant Nelson grew up in a town so isolated and remote that even people from other parts of North Dakota describe it as "the middle of nowhere." Only North Dakota colleges knew about him in high school. Three years later, high-profile programs across America wanted the skilled, athletic 6-foot-10 North Dakota State transfer.
“I’d be driving home from a beer-league softball game and I’d get a call from Rick Pitino,” Nelson’s eldest sibling Justin Thomas told Yahoo Sports with a laugh last year.
Few of those stories are more improbable than the tale of Lanier’s ascent from high school JV player, to North Florida benchwarmer, to the leading scorer on a Tennessee team hoping to be the first in the program’s history to make the Final Four.
“It’s still crazy to me every time I put on this Tennessee uniform,” said Lanier, a Nashville native. “I always grew up watching Tennessee with my mom. We always used to sit down on the couch and watch all the March Madness games. So being able to play in these games and make an impact for a winning team, it’s a dream come true.”
As a 15-year-old, Chaz Lanier had yet to hit his growth spurt, evident by his brother Trey towering over him. (Courtesy of Stacey Lanier)
The questions used to drive Chaz Lanier crazy. People would ask him all the time when he was younger, “When are you going to grow?”
“As if he had a choice in the matter,” his mom said.
Chaz was by far the shortest in a family of athletes. His 6-5 dad led Lipscomb to four straight NAIA tournament appearances. His 5-10 mom played basketball for Alcorn State. His older brother stood a chiseled 6-4 when he entered high school. And yet here was Chaz, a skinny 5-foot-6 high school freshman.
“Mom, I don’t think I’m gonna grow,” Chaz would say back then. “I think you gave all the tall genes to my brother.”
“‘Honey, don’t worry about it. It’s going to come,” mom Stacey Lanier would respond.
“I was pretty confident he was going to hit that growth spurt,” Stacey told Yahoo Sports.
While Chaz displayed work ethic and passion for basketball from a young age, his lack of size and physical tools held him back. He did not play high-level AAU basketball. He played some JV basketball into his junior year at Ensworth High School. Not until his senior year was he more than a varsity rotation player.
The difference maker was Chaz’s long-awaited growth spurt. Between the end of his junior season and the start of his senior season, he sprouted from 5-9 to 6-4 and added bounce and muscle. As a result, he blossomed into a finalist for Tennessee Division II-AA Mr. Basketball honors as a senior, averaging 22.8 points per game on an array of catch-and-shoot jumpers, step-backs, pull-ups and drives to the rim.
Lanier was such an unknown in recruiting circles that his newfound ability to shoot over defenders or finish above the rim went unnoticed by college coaches. He finished his breakout senior season without a single scholarship offer. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that a Division I program finally reached out, albeit an out-of-state, low-major that Stacey admits the Laniers “had never heard of before.”
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, Driscoll grew enamored with Lanier’s shooting mechanics after watching footage from his senior season. The UNF coach opted to try to recruit Lanier even though he had never seen him play in person and could not bring him to campus for a traditional visit.
Over FaceTime, while biking adjacent to the beach in Jacksonville, Fla., Driscoll laid out his vision for how Lanier could contribute at UNF and perhaps even eventually develop into a pro prospect. The conversation went well enough that the Laniers decided to send Chaz to UNF without ever setting foot on the campus or meeting the players or coaches. Chaz chose the Ospreys over Campbell and Division II Alabama-Huntsville.
“It was really scary,” Stacey Lanier admitted. “We spent a lot of time on the phone with Coach Driscoll and he was amazing. We just leaned into the idea of let’s see what happens. We were going to trust that it would all work out.”
It worked out, though patience and persistence were required.
An ill-timed case of COVID sidelined Lanier for three weeks early in his freshman season and put him behind once he returned. He appeared in only 10 games and scored a total of 17 points all season. Catch-and-shoot opportunities would evaporate before Lanier even recognized he had space to get a shot off.
“I honestly feel like I wasn’t ready to play my freshman year,” Lanier said. “I wasn’t reading the game as quickly as others did.”
Lanier was a rotation player at UNF the next two seasons, but he mostly came off the bench as a 3-and-D specialist behind other veteran guards. He averaged less than five points per game both years as Driscoll tinkered with his 3-point shot behind the scenes.
To Driscoll, the arc of Lanier’s shot was too flat and his release wasn’t yet hair-trigger quick. “Up, not out,” the UNF coach would holler at Lanier at the late-blooming guard, likening his 3-point shot to a dart thrower at a bar.
“I’ll tell you what pissed him off,” Driscoll said with a laugh. “We’d contest shots with noodles. He was getting his shot blocked by the managers holding up pool noodles.”
That eventually clicked for Lanier. So did the need to eliminate the dip in his shooting motion and to polish his pre-shot footwork so that his body was already lined up with the rim on the catch. By the end of his junior season, Lanier had a release so fast the ball barely touched his hands before it was gone.
All he needed was an opportunity. And, at last, he would get that.
Chaz Lanier lit up Wofford for 29 points in the first round of the NCAA tournament. (Photo by Tyler Schank/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Tyler Schank via Getty Images
The lingering self doubt that had plagued Lanier melted away over the course of last season. He put together a staggering statistical season, the most efficient of any player in Division I college basketball.
It wasn’t the 19.7 points per game that stood out. It was that he shot 51% from the floor, 44% from behind the arc and 88% from the foul line. In fact, there were games that Driscoll felt Lanier was too judicious with his shot selection and urged him to shoot it more.
“He finally believed the way we believed,” Driscoll said. “He was a worker. He was in rehab. He ate right. He was a great student. He was an incredible human being. He was everything you’d want, but he finally got that confidence.”
Word of Lanier’s shooting ability off the catch or bounce soon spread beyond the Atlantic Sun conference. By mid-January, NBA scouts began blowing up Driscoll’s phone about Lanier and showing up to UNF to evaluate the 6-4 guard for themselves.
That alone, Lanier says, was “so surreal.” Even crazier was the response when he put his name in the transfer portal with Driscoll’s blessing last spring. The same kid that nobody wanted out of high school became one of the most sought-after transfers on the market.
While BYU and Kentucky offered the most NIL money, Lanier chose Tennessee. He liked the idea of returning to his home state, he clicked with coach Rick Barnes and his staff and the Vols desperately needed a player with his skill set after Dalton Knecht left for the NBA last spring.
The moment that clinched Lanier’s decision was the welcome he and his family received after arriving in Knoxville around midnight on a recruiting trip. The whole coaching staff was there to greet the Laniers despite the late hour.
“We were trying to get our bags out of the car and they wouldn’t let us touch anything,” Stacey Lanier recalled. “They got all of our bags out, they ushered us into the locker room and the whole team was there.”
Chaz later told his mom, “It felt like they threw me a surprise party.”
Stepping into Knecht’s former role was a daunting challenge for Lanier, but he has seamlessly adjusted to facing longer, more athletic defenders. He’s averaging a team-best 18.1 points per game for Tennessee while shooting 41% from behind the arc. He has yet to flash the ability to facilitate for others, but he’s a three-level scorer who combines elite catch-and-shoot ability with the acuity to create his own offense.
The best of Lanier has been on display so far during the NCAA tournament. He torched Wofford for 29 points in the opening round. Then he lit up UCLA for 20 two nights later.
“Chaz Lanier is just an unbelievable story,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said on the eve of their matchup. “They were on TV one day and I'm watching him like, who is this guy? Where did he come from? I look up and two years ago, he averaged 4.7 points a game at North Florida. So I texted Matt Driscoll and I said, what were you doing? This guy is a star, and you were holding him back!”
Now comes the biggest game of Lanier’s college career, a third crack at a Kentucky team that defeated Tennessee twice during the regular season. If the Vols win, they'll be back in the Elite Eight for a second straight season, back within a single victory of ending the program’s interminable Final Four drought.
Asked if he could have envisioned playing in a game like this when he was toiling in obscurity on his high school’s JV team or coming off the bench at North Florida, Lanier admits, “No, I definitely wouldn’t have believed this was possible.”
He is living proof that Cinderella stories still exist in this year’s big-brand Sweet 16.
Says Driscoll with a laugh, “I’m so glad we found his slipper.”
Continue reading...
Driscoll wanted Chaz Lanier to understand what was possible for him the following season if he strived to prepare himself.
Lanier was his own worst enemy in those days, a late bloomer who worked tirelessly but constantly doubted himself. He still perceived himself as the kid who was once too short and scrawny to play varsity basketball, who even after a growth spurt finished his senior season without a single scholarship offer.
In his first three seasons at North Florida, Lanier made a modest impact as a role player who never averaged more than 4.7 points per game. Now the veteran guards who started in front of him were either graduating or transferring. Driscoll wanted Lanier to know that this was his moment, that the following year’s team belonged to him.
The end-of-season evaluation that Driscoll handed Lanier said, “You have set it up to have an incredible breakout year with no limitations in front of you except yourself.” Driscoll concluded the evaluation with the following prediction: “Man, hope you see what’s in front of you because it could be an amazing story for us to tell for years after you’re gone!!!”
“At the time, I really didn’t see the vision that I guess Coach Driscoll had,” Lanier told Yahoo Sports. “He always saw the light shining bright inside of me, and I guess I didn’t see that in myself just yet. For him to say that, it was definitely a confidence booster. I mean, he called the whole thing.”
It’s hard for even Lanier to believe how his life has changed since that meeting with Driscoll two years ago. He has traded North Florida blue for Tennessee orange. He has evolved into one of college basketball’s most feared perimeter shooters. And he’ll lead the second-seeded Vols against SEC rival Kentucky on Friday night in an NCAA tournament round of 16 matchup with a spot in the Elite Eight at stake.
Stories like Lanier’s are a reminder that this year’s heavyweight Sweet 16 isn’t as devoid of charming underdogs as it’s been made out to be. The 16 teams still competing for a national title may each hail from power conferences, but Cinderella stories still exist, if you know where to look for them.
Some of the best players in this year’s NCAA tournament were overlooked recruits who began their college careers in small-conference obscurity. There are Sweet 16 standouts who got their starts anywhere from Yale, to Belmont, to Iona, to Drexel, to Ohio before showcasing their talents and transferring to name-brand programs.
Morehead State was one of only three Division I schools to offer Johni Broome in high school, and as Eagles coach Jonathan Mattox recently told Yahoo Sports, “If anybody tells you they envisioned what Johni would become, they’re lying.” The 6-10 big man worked tirelessly to transform himself from a redshirt candidate as a Morehead State freshman into a first-team All-American at Auburn four-plus years later.
Alabama forward Grant Nelson grew up in a town so isolated and remote that even people from other parts of North Dakota describe it as "the middle of nowhere." Only North Dakota colleges knew about him in high school. Three years later, high-profile programs across America wanted the skilled, athletic 6-foot-10 North Dakota State transfer.
“I’d be driving home from a beer-league softball game and I’d get a call from Rick Pitino,” Nelson’s eldest sibling Justin Thomas told Yahoo Sports with a laugh last year.
Few of those stories are more improbable than the tale of Lanier’s ascent from high school JV player, to North Florida benchwarmer, to the leading scorer on a Tennessee team hoping to be the first in the program’s history to make the Final Four.
“It’s still crazy to me every time I put on this Tennessee uniform,” said Lanier, a Nashville native. “I always grew up watching Tennessee with my mom. We always used to sit down on the couch and watch all the March Madness games. So being able to play in these games and make an impact for a winning team, it’s a dream come true.”
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As a 15-year-old, Chaz Lanier had yet to hit his growth spurt, evident by his brother Trey towering over him. (Courtesy of Stacey Lanier)
‘When are you going to grow?’
The questions used to drive Chaz Lanier crazy. People would ask him all the time when he was younger, “When are you going to grow?”
“As if he had a choice in the matter,” his mom said.
Chaz was by far the shortest in a family of athletes. His 6-5 dad led Lipscomb to four straight NAIA tournament appearances. His 5-10 mom played basketball for Alcorn State. His older brother stood a chiseled 6-4 when he entered high school. And yet here was Chaz, a skinny 5-foot-6 high school freshman.
“Mom, I don’t think I’m gonna grow,” Chaz would say back then. “I think you gave all the tall genes to my brother.”
“‘Honey, don’t worry about it. It’s going to come,” mom Stacey Lanier would respond.
“I was pretty confident he was going to hit that growth spurt,” Stacey told Yahoo Sports.
While Chaz displayed work ethic and passion for basketball from a young age, his lack of size and physical tools held him back. He did not play high-level AAU basketball. He played some JV basketball into his junior year at Ensworth High School. Not until his senior year was he more than a varsity rotation player.
The difference maker was Chaz’s long-awaited growth spurt. Between the end of his junior season and the start of his senior season, he sprouted from 5-9 to 6-4 and added bounce and muscle. As a result, he blossomed into a finalist for Tennessee Division II-AA Mr. Basketball honors as a senior, averaging 22.8 points per game on an array of catch-and-shoot jumpers, step-backs, pull-ups and drives to the rim.
Lanier was such an unknown in recruiting circles that his newfound ability to shoot over defenders or finish above the rim went unnoticed by college coaches. He finished his breakout senior season without a single scholarship offer. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that a Division I program finally reached out, albeit an out-of-state, low-major that Stacey admits the Laniers “had never heard of before.”
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, Driscoll grew enamored with Lanier’s shooting mechanics after watching footage from his senior season. The UNF coach opted to try to recruit Lanier even though he had never seen him play in person and could not bring him to campus for a traditional visit.
Over FaceTime, while biking adjacent to the beach in Jacksonville, Fla., Driscoll laid out his vision for how Lanier could contribute at UNF and perhaps even eventually develop into a pro prospect. The conversation went well enough that the Laniers decided to send Chaz to UNF without ever setting foot on the campus or meeting the players or coaches. Chaz chose the Ospreys over Campbell and Division II Alabama-Huntsville.
“It was really scary,” Stacey Lanier admitted. “We spent a lot of time on the phone with Coach Driscoll and he was amazing. We just leaned into the idea of let’s see what happens. We were going to trust that it would all work out.”
It worked out, though patience and persistence were required.
An ill-timed case of COVID sidelined Lanier for three weeks early in his freshman season and put him behind once he returned. He appeared in only 10 games and scored a total of 17 points all season. Catch-and-shoot opportunities would evaporate before Lanier even recognized he had space to get a shot off.
“I honestly feel like I wasn’t ready to play my freshman year,” Lanier said. “I wasn’t reading the game as quickly as others did.”
Lanier was a rotation player at UNF the next two seasons, but he mostly came off the bench as a 3-and-D specialist behind other veteran guards. He averaged less than five points per game both years as Driscoll tinkered with his 3-point shot behind the scenes.
To Driscoll, the arc of Lanier’s shot was too flat and his release wasn’t yet hair-trigger quick. “Up, not out,” the UNF coach would holler at Lanier at the late-blooming guard, likening his 3-point shot to a dart thrower at a bar.
“I’ll tell you what pissed him off,” Driscoll said with a laugh. “We’d contest shots with noodles. He was getting his shot blocked by the managers holding up pool noodles.”
That eventually clicked for Lanier. So did the need to eliminate the dip in his shooting motion and to polish his pre-shot footwork so that his body was already lined up with the rim on the catch. By the end of his junior season, Lanier had a release so fast the ball barely touched his hands before it was gone.
All he needed was an opportunity. And, at last, he would get that.
You must be registered for see images
Chaz Lanier lit up Wofford for 29 points in the first round of the NCAA tournament. (Photo by Tyler Schank/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Tyler Schank via Getty Images
‘This guy is a star’
The lingering self doubt that had plagued Lanier melted away over the course of last season. He put together a staggering statistical season, the most efficient of any player in Division I college basketball.
It wasn’t the 19.7 points per game that stood out. It was that he shot 51% from the floor, 44% from behind the arc and 88% from the foul line. In fact, there were games that Driscoll felt Lanier was too judicious with his shot selection and urged him to shoot it more.
“He finally believed the way we believed,” Driscoll said. “He was a worker. He was in rehab. He ate right. He was a great student. He was an incredible human being. He was everything you’d want, but he finally got that confidence.”
Word of Lanier’s shooting ability off the catch or bounce soon spread beyond the Atlantic Sun conference. By mid-January, NBA scouts began blowing up Driscoll’s phone about Lanier and showing up to UNF to evaluate the 6-4 guard for themselves.
That alone, Lanier says, was “so surreal.” Even crazier was the response when he put his name in the transfer portal with Driscoll’s blessing last spring. The same kid that nobody wanted out of high school became one of the most sought-after transfers on the market.
While BYU and Kentucky offered the most NIL money, Lanier chose Tennessee. He liked the idea of returning to his home state, he clicked with coach Rick Barnes and his staff and the Vols desperately needed a player with his skill set after Dalton Knecht left for the NBA last spring.
The moment that clinched Lanier’s decision was the welcome he and his family received after arriving in Knoxville around midnight on a recruiting trip. The whole coaching staff was there to greet the Laniers despite the late hour.
“We were trying to get our bags out of the car and they wouldn’t let us touch anything,” Stacey Lanier recalled. “They got all of our bags out, they ushered us into the locker room and the whole team was there.”
Chaz later told his mom, “It felt like they threw me a surprise party.”
Stepping into Knecht’s former role was a daunting challenge for Lanier, but he has seamlessly adjusted to facing longer, more athletic defenders. He’s averaging a team-best 18.1 points per game for Tennessee while shooting 41% from behind the arc. He has yet to flash the ability to facilitate for others, but he’s a three-level scorer who combines elite catch-and-shoot ability with the acuity to create his own offense.
The best of Lanier has been on display so far during the NCAA tournament. He torched Wofford for 29 points in the opening round. Then he lit up UCLA for 20 two nights later.
“Chaz Lanier is just an unbelievable story,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said on the eve of their matchup. “They were on TV one day and I'm watching him like, who is this guy? Where did he come from? I look up and two years ago, he averaged 4.7 points a game at North Florida. So I texted Matt Driscoll and I said, what were you doing? This guy is a star, and you were holding him back!”
Now comes the biggest game of Lanier’s college career, a third crack at a Kentucky team that defeated Tennessee twice during the regular season. If the Vols win, they'll be back in the Elite Eight for a second straight season, back within a single victory of ending the program’s interminable Final Four drought.
Asked if he could have envisioned playing in a game like this when he was toiling in obscurity on his high school’s JV team or coming off the bench at North Florida, Lanier admits, “No, I definitely wouldn’t have believed this was possible.”
He is living proof that Cinderella stories still exist in this year’s big-brand Sweet 16.
Says Driscoll with a laugh, “I’m so glad we found his slipper.”
Continue reading...
