BOULDER — Few mentors have encouraged and motivated more throughout his uniquely nomadic basketball career than Marcus Mason.
And yet even Mason figured White landed just about where he belonged five years ago when the skinny kid from Legend High School in Parker began his Division II career at Colorado-Colorado Springs.
White’s improbable journey from an overlooked and undersized high school prospect to a possible All-Pac-12 Conference selection comes full circle Saturday, when White plays the final regular season home game of his brief Division I career alongside fellow seniors , , and as Colorado takes on Cal at the Coors Events Center.
“My first impression was, he wasn’t really that good,” Mason said of his initial impressions of White when he still was in junior high. “He had solid skills. But at that time there was no way I could project him being a college player or even a top-level high school player.
“But he always had a high basketball IQ. Whenever I explained college basketball concepts to him, he always got it. I was always concerned with him with his overall size and athleticism at that stage. When he went to UCCS and came back after his freshman year, he really turned a corner.”
Mason had just finished a stint as an assistant coach at the University of Denver, where he coached former CU assistant (and current DU head coach) Rodney Billups when he was a star point guard for the Pioneers. Mason was beginning a career as a local club coach (he now works at the Nothing But Net program and serves on the executive staff of the Chauncey Billups Elite Basketball Academy) when he began putting White through private workouts.
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