By Nathan Deen
Published on November 7, 2007
Before he began his college basketball career at PJC, Joel Anthony did not have a lot of experience. In fact, he had just started playing the game the year before he became a Pirate. Despite his inexperience, his hard work and determination proved to be invaluable to his success.
Anthony came to PJC in 2003 from Montreal, Canada. Although he had not played a lot of basketball, PJC head coach Paul Swanson said that he was built to be a great inside player.
Anthony was not an instant success and had to fight through some adversity to get to where he is today. Swanson said that he struggled early in his career as he became academically ineligible.
“When he was ineligible,” Swanson said, “he didn’t quit. He kept fighting and he got better. He just kept working at it. We have that slogan at PJC ‘you can get there from here.’ He is one of those guys that makes that slogan come true.”
After playing two years at PJC, the 245-pound, 6′ 9″ center was offered a scholarship to play at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas under head coach Lon Kruger. Anthony’s senior year was an unforgettable one as UNLV won the Mid-Western Conference Tournament Championship, made it to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament, and finished with a record of 30-7.
Anthony said that playing in the Sweet 16 was one of the most exciting times of his life.
“Everyone was so into it,” he said, “and everyone was sharing our success. Even though we lost, we felt bad right after it, but we knew we made a great run and we were still happy with the way things turned out.”
UNLV was a No. 7 seed in the Midwest Regional bracket in last year’s NCAA tournament and defeated No. 10 seed Georgia Tech and No 2. seed Wisconsin before losing to No. 3 seed Oregon.
Anthony made numerous individual achievements during his career at UNLV. He was named the conference defensive player of the year of the 2006-2007 season, and his 109 blocks (averaging 2.94 per game, 11th in the country) was second most all-time in school and conference history. His total of 157 blocks for his career was second most all-time in school history and fourth most in conference history.
This great success story continued over the course of the NBA off-season. After making the final cut in tryouts, Anthony was invited to join the Miami Heat.
Not expecting to play much, Anthony said that he will take this year as a learning experience. Legendary head coach Pat Riley and players Shaquille O’Neal, Dwayne Wade, Jason Williams, and Alonzo Mourning are just some of the idolized figures Anthony will be learning from this year.
“It’s been a lot of fun…to be in that type of atmosphere,” Anthony said. “It’s tough for rookies coming into this league. I have no expectations on playing time. I just want to be able to have a pretty good learning curve in terms of figuring things out. I’m just going to keep doing the things that I’ve done that’s gotten me to this point.”
According to the UNLV team page on cstv.com, in five preseason games with Miami, Anthony averaged 5.0 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game. The PJC graduate began his NBA career Thursday night against the Pistons, a game Miami lost. Miami (0-3) will play San Antonio Wednesday night at 8 p.m.