With high expectations as a freshman, men’s basketball guard Antonio Biglow helped lead the Mounties to the Southern Calif. Regionals, but as he works hard to improve his game, he has his eyes set on bringing in a California state championship next season.
Biglow, 20, earned several accolades in the 2009-10 season, from South Coast Conference MVP to first-team all-state, but the one award he’s looking forward to getting at Mt. SAC is the 2010-11 state championship ring.
“The only thing floating above my head is the ring,” Biglow said. “I don’t care about the ‘all-conference’ ‘all-tournament MVP’ I don’t care about none of that. Next year I just want the ring. That’s all I want.”
As Biglow eyes the 2010-11 season, this season was anything but a failure as the Mounties went 25-5 and were a last second shot away from the state championships, a shot that Biglow missed in a 71-72 loss.
“I’m still havin’ dreams about it… I’ll have a dream that I made the shot,” Biglow said. “It gets to me, but it don’t really get to me. All of that is behind us now. Now we’re just looking forward to next season.”
Biglow’s success this season did not come by talent alone, the work he put into his training was what translated in the games.
“He’s a kid that’s always in the gym, always working and always getting in extra work and it definitely helped him in terms of skill development,” Mt. SAC head coach Allen Caveness said.
Aside from team practices, Biglow would meet up with assistant coach Criss Freeman for 6 a.m. drills.
“He’s definitely as good as he is because of how hard he works,” Freeman said. “I’ve been here 13 or 14 years and he’s one of the guys with the highest basketball IQs that I’ve coached here,” Freeman added.
Biglow’s training did not end with team practices and 6 a.m. drills; he also had a personal trainer, Edmund “Tiny” Flournoy Sr., whom he still meets with three times a week.
Coach Tiny said that in these training sessions he makes Biglow do NBA-type drills such as shooting NBA-range three-point shots, intense conditioning drills and shooting with his off hand.
“I tell him all the time that he’s a diamond,” Flournoy said. “You know diamonds all have flaws, but with a diamond you can always cut and polish, so he’s in the cutting and polishing process.”
After all that training, Biglow still practices in his free time.
“At 11 o’clock at night, I’ll go shoot again,” Biglow said. “I’ll shoot maybe 100 jump shots, 100 three-point shots, 100 free throws, and then I’ll get home.”
What fuels Biglow to endure all of this training? The simple fact that he needs to work hard to eat.
“That’s how I look at it every day,” Biglow said. “I wake up and I go work out, ‘I gotta eat.’ That’s why I’ll strive for perfection every game.”
Biglow attributes his work ethic to his grandfather, Robert Drew, who taught him to be tough growing up.
“He’s old school,” Biglow said. “Let’s say you want the weeds pulled out of the ground, you’re not gonna use no new technology, you’re gonna use your hands.”
Biglow said his dad, Anthony Biglow, showed him that toughness as well.
Anthony Biglow said his son’s competitiveness came from watching him play, and that his can’t-lose attitude rubbed off on Biglow as well.
“I played to win,” Anthony Biglow said. “I didn’t play to lose… that’s how he plays.”
Biglow’s life changed when the biggest family influence in his life, his grandmother, Ada Drew, passed away. He described her as a mother figure.
“It made me look at the real world even more,” Biglow said. “I talked to her about anything, and she always gave me great advice about everything. It’s not like I could always go back and run to her and talk to her because she’s not here anymore.”
All of his family influences and support have helped him excel and have given him a passion for winning, which has not gone unnoticed by universities. Top NCAA schools such as UCLA, New Mexico State, Boise State and West Virginia University have scouted him. Biglow said this coming season will be important for him as he hopes to create more interest from even more schools.
“It makes me feel good, but at the same time it makes me want to push harder so I can have more schools to choose from, more options instead of just those,” Biglow said.
Caveness brought a professional approach to his team in his first season as Mt. SAC coach and as team leader, Biglow had to harness that professional attitude on the court.
“Him [Biglow] being a point guard, he’s supposed to be an extension of the coaching staff,” Caveness said. “Obviously, the point guard is an intricate part of the success of any team.”
Biglow was not just a leader on the court, he described his team as a family on and off the court as well.
One of Biglow’s goals for last season was to make his teammates better, and Mounties’ forward Kaimyn Pruit said Biglow was able to do that as they were always in sync on the court, but that the expectations for next season are higher.
“We played decent together this year,” Pruit said. “But we’ll play a lot better next year.”
Biglow said he cares more about getting his team a victory than his personal statistics.
“At the end of the day, you can have 100 points with a loss and it’s not gonna mean nothing,” Biglow said. “I’d rather have 25 points with a victory. I’ll take that over anything, any day, or five points with a victory, I’ll take that.”
Biglow feels that next year’s team will be stronger as several teammates will be returning for their sophomore season as they look to win the Calif. state championship.
“If we win the ring, after that I might not come to school no more,” Biglow said jokingly.
After college, he plans on getting into real estate, but the NBA is still in the back of his mind.
“It’s every basketball player’s dream,” Biglow said. “The NBA, that’ll make me work harder. That’s where I wanna get.”
Only time will tell if all his hard work will lead him to play in a top NCAA school, or even the NBA, but if he takes a step forward from last season, a shot at the state championship is in his future.
Photos by Sherazad Shaikh
