{"id":22024,"date":"2018-10-24T18:11:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T22:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22024"},"modified":"2018-10-24T18:11:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T22:11:54","slug":"auroras-nembhard-ready-for-freshman-year-of-college-hoops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-nembhard-ready-for-freshman-year-of-college-hoops\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s Nembhard ready for freshman year of college hoops"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

With great talent, comes great responsibility.
\nProjected as a first round draft pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, Andrew Nembhard is being thrust into a starting role on the varsity basketball squad at one of the NCAA\u2019s most prestigious schools, all at the age of 18.
\nThe Aurora native, who attended Vaughan Secondary School through his first two years of high school, was chosen by coaching staff last week to run in the starting point guard position when the Florida Gators open their season against Florida State in a few weeks\u2019 time.
\n\u201cI think I\u2019m ready for the opportunity,\u201d said Nembhard in a call from campus. \u201c\u201cWhen I was younger I used to play with all the older guys and they were the scorers, so I just tried to give them the ball, win the games really.\u201d
\nKnown for his slick passing, Nembhard\u2019s gift for assists should reward a shot-heavy Gators team that went 21 \u2013 13 overall last year, making the second round of the NCAA March Madness tournament.
\n\u201cMy dad was a passer as well, so it\u2019s something he passed down to me,\u201d said Nembhard. \u201cI think I just got his vision.\u201d
\n\u201cHe\u2019ll have a chance to be in the conversation to be one of the better passers in college basketball,\u201d said Gators head coach Mike White during the team\u2019s media day last week. \u201cWho knows how many assists that means, how many highlights he produces, how many minutes he\u2019ll play. I\u2019m not sure.\u201d
\nPutting aside the fact that he has spent the last three seasons with Florida\u2019s Montverde Academy, when asked why he chose the Gators over other schools he was highly recruited for, Nembhard said it was the coaching staff that stood out.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s just all great guys here,\u201d said Nembhard. \u201cThey push me, on and off the court. I just feel like it\u2019s a great environment\u2026the staff, players, team is really good, we\u2019ve got a great playing style, and it\u2019s a great school. A lot of things came together.\u201d
\nAt six-foot-five, Nembhard stands tall for a point guard, something he said should work to his advantage to be able to \u201csee over the defense.\u201d As for being thrust into the spotlight as a freshman, he is taking it all in stride.
\n\u201cI\u2019m cool with the expectations I don\u2019t really feel any pressure,\u201d Nembhard said, having been on campus since June. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to come in and do whatever I can to help the team. I think we have a great group of guys and can go far this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With great talent, comes great responsibility.
\nProjected as a first round draft pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, Andrew Nembhard is being thrust into a starting role on the varsity basketball squad at one of the NCAA\u2019s most prestigious schools, all at the age of 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/2018-10-25-17.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Je","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 10:07:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}