One of the last players remaining in McArthur Court, Andre Joseph practices alone at a corner basket. He sizes up his phantom defender, fakes right, dribbles between his legs, spins quickly to the left baseline and throws up a soft floater.
Swish.
After a few minutes of one-on-none, Joseph heads across the court to the south hoop, just vacated by sharp-shooting teammate James Davis, and begins taking jumpers from the three-point arc. Assistant coach Fred Litzenberger approaches the junior guard, placing his hand on Joseph’s back after each shot to push him forward.
“That makes you maintain your balance,” Litz, as he’s known to his players, tells his apprentice.
Joseph seems a bit annoyed with the coach’s nudges at first, and bricks the first few attempts. Then, with his balance in check, Joseph finds his groove. Swish.
“There you go,” Litz says. “How about that, huh?”
For too long, Joseph walked a thin tightrope, hoping not to fall back. Turns out all he needed was a helping hand, a push to keep him moving forward.
A standout basketball player at Furr High School in Houston — in his senior year, he was ranked the 107th-best prep hoopster in the nation by USA Today — Joseph struggled to balance his athletics and academics. Potential scholarships to some of the country’s best college basketball programs — including interest from Oregon — were for naught because his high school grades failed to match his impressive scoring average.
“Nobody could offer me (a scholarship) ’cause I didn’t have my grades,” Joseph said. “I was recruited by a lot of Pac-10 schools, Big-12, Conference USA, and the only school that stayed was the school I signed with. Everybody else left, and I was like, ‘Dang, all the schools are gone; I got to sign with somebody.’ So I signed with them, and I never ended up playing.”
That school, Stephen F. Austin in Texas, turned out to be a mistake. Ineligible even to practice — much less play in games — Joseph spent his first year out of high school partying, continuing his trend away from academic life.
“That was hard,” Joseph said. “That was my first year of not playing ball.”
After a coaching change, Joseph left Stephen F. Austin and transferred to Lee Junior College in Baytown, Texas, where he finally found the right combination of books and basketball.
“The thing about junior college is, it really makes you want to focus in on school so you can move on to the next level,” Joseph said. “Junior college helped me out a lot. With smaller classes, I could concentrate a lot better.”

With his academics in order, Joseph excelled on the court as well, averaging 22.3 points per game in his sophomore season and becoming Lee’s all-time leading scorer.
Then the recruiting process began again, and this time the scholarship offers came flooding in. Texas, Texas Christian, Louisiana Tech, Oregon and Houston, among others, came calling. Oregon, having recruited Joseph in high school, had the advantage over Houston, his home-town school, and a need at shooting guard with Freddie Jones’ departure to the NBA.
But becoming a Duck was harder than just signing a letter of intent and moving to Eugene. It took Joseph all summer and most of the preseason to get adjusted to the new system, a new environment and a new team.
“They’re a family already,” Joseph said of joining the Ducks. “It’s like trying to adopt someone into a family. It took them a long time to accept me. They knew I was behind three or four years, so it just took a lot of games and a lot of practices to get comfortable.”
Adjusting to his new academic responsibilities, however, didn’t take quite as long. In his first term at the University, Joseph finished with one of the highest GPAs on the team. He’s on course to graduate ahead of schedule with a sociology degree.
His secret to academic success? “Just pay attention every day and go to class; that’s half of it,” he said. “And if you study, it’s even better.”
Now comfortable with his role off the bench, Joseph has become a consistent scorer for the Ducks, averaging 11.3 points in Pacific-10 Conference games, and replacing some of Jones’ athleticism.
“Nobody can replace what Freddie did, but Andre’s another great athletic guard on this team,” Davis said. “He definitely gives us a bit of a lift off the bench.”
Though he admits he was nervous about pleasing the Oregon crowd in his first few games at Mac Court, Joseph has settled down and created quite a highlight reel for himself at The Pit. It’s hard to forget Joseph’s two blocks against Arizona, when Jason Gardner appeared to have a couple of easy, fast-break layins. And he created a buzz with that assist-to-himself dunk against Washington State. How about that, huh?
Though he has started four games this season — three when Luke Jackson was injured — Joseph’s role remains as Oregon’s sixth man.
“I think the sign of a person with good character is when they can humble themselves for the betterment of the team,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “Here’s a guy that could easily be starting for us right now. But he’s said, ‘Coach, whatever you want me to do, I’ll do.’ I just think that says a lot about his character.”
And a lot about how far Joseph’s come since high school. All it took was a good balancing act.