Marshall Henderson

Marshall Henderson (born September 19, 1990) is an American college basketball shooting guard with the Ole Miss Rebels men's basketball team who played his junior season for the 2012–13 team.^[1]

High school career

Henderson was a standout basketball player for L.D. Bell High School in Hurst, Texas. He played for his father, Willie Henderson, and scored 2,289 points in his career. As a senior, Henderson was All-County and District MVP as he averaged 25.8 points, 5.1 assists, 5.0 rebounds, and 3.8 steals.^[2] Henderson was rated as the number 57 shooting guard and given a scout grade of 87 in the class of 2009 by espn.com.^[3] He committed to play college basketball for Utah, turning down scholarship offers from Bradley, Gonzaga, Notre Dame, and Stanford.^[4]

College career

Freshman season

In Henderson's first and only season at Utah, he started 30 of 31 games, and averaged 27.4 minutes per contest. He was second on the team with 11.8 points per game, and also had 2.5 rebounds and 0.9 assists per game. He scored a season high 24 against TCU in an MWC game. At the end of the season, Henderson earned honorable mention All-Mountain West honors, and Utah finished 14–17 (7–9 in the MWC).

Sophomore season

Henderson transferred from Utah to Texas Tech after his freshman season, and in turn he had to sit out the 2010–2011 season. At the end of the 2010–2011 season, Texas Tech fired coach Pat Knight, so Henderson decided to transfer again, this time to South Plains Junior College. He never played a single game at Texas Tech. His sophomore season finally started during the 2011–2012 season at South Plains. Henderson led South Plains to a 36–0 record, a #1 NJCAA ranking, and a NJCAA national championship. Along with having great team success, Henderson was the Western Junior College Athletic Conference MVP, a NJCAA first team All-American, and the NJCAA Player of the Year.^[1]

Junior season

For his junior season, Henderson transferred from South Plains to Ole Miss. Henderson started 33 of the Rebels' 36 games, and averaged an SEC-high 20.1 points per game in 31.5 minutes per game. Along with his 20+ points per game, Henderson also averaged 3.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game.^[5] Henderson led Ole Miss to a 27–9 record (12–6 in the SEC), including an SEC conference tournament crown and an automatic bid in the 2013 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. He also was the SEC Newcomer of the Year, second team All-SEC, and SEC Tournament MVP.^[6] Ole Miss received a 12 seed in the West Region and upset 5 seed Wisconsin in the second round, behind Henderson's 19 points. In the third round, Ole Miss was defeated by 13 seed La Salle 76-74; Henderson turned in a 21 point performance on 8-21 shooting.^[7]

Personality

Henderson is known for playing with reckless abandon and passion.^[8] Henderson often celebrates on the court, and engages in trash talking with the other team's players, fans,and even coaches.^[9] Henderson embraces the role of "villain" in the SEC, and says he feeds off of the negative attention.^[10] After losing to LaSalle in the NCAA tournament, Henderson wrote an open letter to Ole Miss fans to apologize for his behavior and announce that he would be returning to Oxford for his senior year.^[11]

Off-court issues

Before graduating from high school, Henderson was placed on probation for trying to buy $800 (around 60 grams) worth of marijuana with counterfeit money. Following that incident, while still on probation, he failed a drug test, testing positive for alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. This, combined with his failing to perform community service as dictated, caused Henderson to have to serve 25 days in jail in the spring of 2012 at Tarrant County Jail in Texas.^[12]

During the summer of 2013, Henderson was caught in possession of marijuana and cocaine and was suspended for the first three games of the 2013–14 NCAA Division I men's basketball season, his senior campaign. ^[13]

References