By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

VINCENT – EJ Datcher is going to be a Bulldog. The 6-foot-9-inch senior center from Vincent has committed to accept a scholarship offer from Mississippi State, where he will join head coach Ben Howland’s quest to turn the Bulldogs’ into a contender in the SEC.

The Vincent big man averaged just less than 15 points, 11 rebounds and two assists per game for the 2A Yellow Jackets in his senior season en route to a Sweet Sixteen appearance. He has size and a soft touch around the basket, and can step outside the paint and knock down a 15-footer with surprising consistency for a big man. His game has developed significantly over the course of his senior year, according to Vincent head coach John Hadder, and he is the first basketball player in Vincent history to receive a scholarship offer from an SEC school.

However, there was a time when Datcher’s basketball future was in doubt. He went down with a knee injury midway through a very productive junior season, which forced him to miss the rest of the high school season and most of the ensuing AAU circuit, and the recruiting clout that had begun to build around the big man faded.

Coming off the knee injury, it took Datcher a while to get back to the player he had been, as it often does with athletes suffering from knee injuries. Players don’t want to put the necessary weight back on the injured knee to plant or move with the same efficiency as before their injuries, and have to work getting past that mental block of not wanting to get re-injured just as much as the physical rehab.

After he had sufficiently worked his way back into playing shape and felt comfortable with his knee, Mississippi State was one of the first schools that began to show interest, back at the beginning of this 2015-16 season. Alabama followed suite, wanting to know more about the off-the-radar big man, as well as schools like Troy and South Alabama.

A season-long recruiting saga took place, as each school became further enticed by Datcher’s skill set. Mississippi State finally pulled the trigger and offered Datcher a scholarship, and after some time spent thinking, Datcher committed to play his college ball in Starkville, Miss on Feb. 29.

“I loved the campus,” Datcher said of Mississippi State. “When I walked around campus, everyone I saw was like, ‘Are you coming here to play basketball?’ People were interested, and that kind of drove me more to go towards Mississippi State.”

The allure of a big-time program was one of the reasons Datcher, a lifelong resident of Vincent, was drawn toward the school, as was the opportunity to play against some of the best players in the country.

“Going against the best guys like Kentucky has and Alabama has,” Datcher said. “Going in there and dominating over their big man. I like visualizing seeing myself playing against them and dunking on them.”

Hadder has been Datcher’s coach his entire high school career, and has known him for longer, and has seen Datcher’s maturation and development first hand.

“When he was a ninth-grader, he was big and long,” Hadder said. “But he didn’t really know how to use it (his size) in a lot of ways. He wasn’t near as refined as he is now in terms of his touch around the basket and being able to face up and shoot the ball. He matured a lot this past year.”

Datcher is the seventh committed recruit for Mississippi State in the 2016 class, and ESPN.com currently ranks the Bulldogs’ recruiting class the No. 5 class in the nation.