June 5, 2012
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By Doug Richards
UCFAthletics.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) - Tristan Spurlock's teammates know where they can find the forward this offseason. Fueled by the motivation to make great strides before his junior campaign, he is spending nearly all of his free time on UCF's practice court, working on his game.
Every day, and every evening, Spurlock heads to the gym, and thoughts from the 2011-12 season fill his head as he knocks down jumper after jumper, free throw after free throw and dunk after dunk. In his first year competing with the Knights after transferring from Virginia, Spurlock averaged 7.2 points in over 23 minutes per contest. Despite the solid numbers, Spurlock feels like he could have made greater contributions to the team. As a result, he is focused on improving.
"I think I had a lot of ups and downs," he said. "I had a lot of good points. I had a lot of good games that I strung together. But I had a lot games where I would play 28 minutes, and I would look back and say, `what did I really do?' I want to take that next step. I saw Isaiah (Sykes) take that next step, and I want to do that as well."
The next step for Sykes allowed the Detroit native to make a huge jump from his freshman to his sophomore year. The wing averaged 4.0 points as a rookie and moved to 12.3 points a year ago.
Spurlock made similar strides from his freshman campaign. He averaged 2.4 points in limited minutes at Virginia in 2009-10, and improved during his redshirt year. But he wants more growth, especially with his overall game. Fifty-one percent of his field-goal attempts were from 3-point range last year, but Spurlock wants to be more than just a shooter.
"I want to stay versatile. I don't want to be pigeon-holed as just a shooter. I still want to make sure that I can drive and attack. I think this year I was just out there shooting threes instead of being versatile," Spurlock said.
Spurlock is spending the entire summer on campus, taking classes and working out. For Spurlock, those workouts have allowed thoughts of improvement to fill his head.
"I am always in the gym, on the (shooting) gun, working out," he said. "I will get better."