Ohio forward Kevin Mickle has been places.
Mickle, a Florida Gulf Coast graduate transfer, has played for seven schools since ninth grade. Now, he’s calling Athens home for the year with aspirations of seeing where else the sport might take him.
“He’s an easy kid to talk to, he listens, he’s got a good attitude and he’s really athletic,” coach Saul Phillips said. “That’s a good combination.”
At age 10, Mickle moved from South America’s Guyana to Brooklyn, New York, with his mom and older brother for improved safety (Guyana had developed cocaine-smuggling routes) and opportunity. In the process, Mickle left behind friends, palm-treed beaches and beautiful weather.
“I didn’t like it at all,” Mickle said. “I felt like I came from paradise to New York.”
In Guyana, he’d enjoyed playing soccer — his father had played professionally in four countries — and running track. But in Brooklyn, which he calls “the city,” neither of those sports was popular.
Basketball, however, appeared in pickup games nearly everywhere he turned.
“Everyone did basketball,” he said. “So, for me to make friends, that’s what I gravitated to.”
Before long, Mickle was watching And1 Mixtape videos on YouTube to build a better sense of the game. LeBron James became his favorite player and Mickle bought a pair of his shoes. By seventh grade, Mickle could dunk.
After one year of high school, Mickle transferred on scholarship to Adelphi Academy, a prep school in the city. When his coach left, Mickle moved again, this time to St. Benedict’s Prep in New Jersey. He was one of seven players, including current NBA guard Tyler Ennis, to sign with an NCAA Division I team.
As a college freshman at Central Connecticut State in 2013-14, Mickle broke a toe while dunking in practice and had to be medically redshirted. By the end of the team’s 11-19 season, he made a decision to leave.
“It was a program that I didn’t want to be in because I didn’t like the culture and a lot of different aspects,” he said. “Especially the winning part, because I like to win. They don’t win a lot.”
Transferring to another D-I school would’ve required Mickle to sit out for a second-straight year. Instead, he researched the NCAA’s 4-2-4 transfer rule, which allows immediate eligibility for players going from a four-year school to a two-year school and vice versa.
At Broward College, a junior college in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, he made his mark, averaging 13.6 points, 9.5 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game. That was enough to grab the attention of Florida Gulf Coast on the other side of the panhandle.
But after one year there, Mickle wanted to leave again. His minutes were low and, at just 2.1 points per game, he felt “marginalized into playing the post a lot,” and ultimately underused.
With the desire to not sit out another year due to transferring, Mickle gutted out a second season at Florida Gulf Coast. His team made the NCAA Tournament both years, but Mickle took fewer than two shots a game and made only five starts in that time.
He needed to be somewhere that wanted to use him. With Ohio, he found what he was looking for.
The Bobcats had a roster spot open after the departure of star point guard Jaaron Simmons, a graduate transfer who left for Michigan in April. Mickle had a connection to the Bobcats already, having played summer pickup games with some of the players on the team.
Phillips had seen Mickle before, when he played briefly in Florida Gulf Coast’s loss to the Bobcats at The Convo in November 2015.
What the Bobcats should expect out of Mickle is a high-energy player who can lock down all five positions on defense. He’s already giving forward Jason Carter fits at times in practice.
But part of why Mickle chose Ohio is that he sees a chance to stretch himself on offense. If he makes strides with his scoring this season, he may have a chance to play professionally and add to the long list of basketball pit stops he’s accrued the past nine years.
“(Mickle is) here for a year,” Phillips said. “You’re just trying to fit in, but you’re also trying to make a statement and take strides forward. He’s really easy to deal with that way … He’s been a lot of fun to work with.”
