After breaking records on the hardwood at Lampasas High School, Beau Patterson is ready to take his basketball talents to the Tar Heel State.
In a matter of days, the 7-footer will pack his bags and settle in at Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina. A move 1,000 miles away may be daunting, but Patterson knew the minute he set foot on campus that he had found his new home.
“The campus is awesome. It’s smaller, but it has everything you need,” Patterson said. “The gym was awesome, facilities were great, the weight room’s awesome, and the coaches too. They did their research and knew they found a guy they wanted to get on their team. It was awesome to see their commitment in me and the journey they had envisioned for me.”
On the Badger boys’ basketball team, Patterson collected an array of accolades. Averaging 23 points and 14 rebounds per game, Patterson finished his senior season with all-district, all-region and all-state honors. He ended his high school career with more than 1,000 points and 1,100 rebounds, setting a new school record.
Patterson’s time as a Badger came to an end with the team’s loss to Navasota in the second round of the UIL Conference 4A Division I playoffs.
“I think we did good leading up to playoffs,” he said. “We really wanted to make a deep run in the playoffs, and that got cut short. Other than that, I think we had a really good season. We had an older squad, and we were pretty much all seniors. So, the chemistry was good there.”
Patterson was eager to improve his game throughout high school, with one of the keys being footwork. Growing up, he said it wasn’t uncommon for him to hit a growth spurt every one to two years.
Although it was challenging learning how to control his everchanging frame, Patterson said he put his faith in God and leaned on his coaches and father, Justin Patterson, to help him through each transition.
“God gave me this great base and stature, and [I just] had to learn what to do with it,” he said. “My coaches through the years helped me with that.
“My dad, he played here in Lampasas and always wanted a son that could go play,” Patterson said. “So he loved training with me, and we would find an open gym and always get some footwork practice done, and he helped a lot with that as well.”
Outside of Lampasas, Patterson was honing his skills in the AAU basketball circuit, an elite youth travel league funded by major brands like Nike and Adidas. It wasn’t uncommon for Patterson to see dozens of college coaches sitting courtside to watch him and the four- and five-star recruits he was competing against.
After bouncing around with several teams looking for the right fit, Patterson settled in with the Dallasbased 3D Empire in the spring of his junior year. Although Patterson wasn’t required to attend midweek practices, he knew it was needed if he wanted to achieve his goals.
“I really wanted to go because of how much better I got, because the practices were a lot higher pace and my teammates were really good as well,” he said. “So in the springtime, we would get back at like 1 a.m. on a school night two times a week. My dad had to go to work the next day, and I would go to school the day after that.”
Before committing to those long nights of travel, Patterson had to decide if college basketball was the right choice for him. With dreams of becoming a commercial airline pilot, he was unsure whether the collegiate route would put those plans off course.
“Going back and forth, I was like, ‘Well, I love the game. Do I want to continue it? Or do I just want to go right into being a pilot?’ ” Patterson said. “I was like, being a pilot, I can hold that off and still play the game I love.”
While the big man had hopes of playing at the NCAA Division I level, Patterson knows those opportunities are hard in today’s age with the college transfer portal. Many large-school coaches prefer athletes tested and tried at the junior college level who are more developed than an 18-year-old high school player.
Patterson was swayed to the East Coast by Lenoir-Rhyne men’s basketball coach Brent Owen, who has developed a pedigree of success. Last season, the Bears finished 26-9 and made their second consecutive NCAA Division II regional championship game appearance.
Patterson felt learning under the tutelage of Owen and his coaching staff was the best fit for his basketball journey.
“I chose Lenoir-Rhyne because number one, what the coaches saw in me and the process they knew it was going to take for me to get developed into the person I want to be,” he said.
Already, Patterson has been connecting with his new teammates before making the move to North Carolina.
“I think I’m really going to enjoy it there,” he said. “My teammates seem awesome, and I’ve already talked to a bunch of them. It seems like we’re going to have great chemistry this year.”
Since the Badgers’ season ended, Patterson has been in the weight room and the gym working to make a good first impression. While fundamentals are always a focus of his 2½-hour workouts, improving his strength and athleticism has been a big offseason goal.
“I think just building my body – you can’t ever get in the weight room too much,” Patterson said. “Just hitting the weight room hard, growing my lower-body leg muscles and just getting more explosive — I think that is a great area I need to work on as well.”
Whether it be logging minutes for defensive possessions, hitting a tough shot down low or collecting rebounds, Patterson is willing to do whatever the Bears coaching staff asks of him his freshman year.
“I’m really going to be focused on being just a team guy this year and just focus on how can I make the team improve and how can I make the team win,” Patterson said.
He isn’t feeling nervous ahead of his big move. In fact, he is ready to make his mark.
“Just trusting God and trusting the process,” Patterson said of his approach. “It’s easy to get nervous. Your mind starts wandering, homesick, but I think it’s going to come down to how bad do I want to work and how bad do I want to get better.”