Mark Story: How Isaiah Cozart morphed from a 'nerd' into a college hoops star

LEXINGTON, Ky. — For the first three seasons of his college basketball “playing career,” Isaiah Cozart had the best seat in E.A. Diddle Arena to watch the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers play.

A vertically challenged 6-foot-7 pivot man who is blessed with a 7-2 wingspan and a knack for blocking shots, Cozart had signed with Rick Stansbury and WKU in the class of 2019 after shattering the all-time Kentucky high school career mark for blocks with 716 in a stellar career at Madison Central.

In Bowling Green, however, Cozart found his path to playing time obstructed in his first two WKU seasons by current San Antonio Spurs big man Charles Bassey. Once Bassey departed, Cozart’s shot at filling his position was again impeded when Western added the 7-foot-5 Jamarion Sharp.

As a result, Cozart spent a third season anchored to the Hilltoppers bench. When he ended his junior season having played only 263 minutes of college basketball in three years, Cozart’s patience finally eroded.

“After my junior year of me sitting, I was kind of like ‘It’s been three years. It’s time to look for another situation,’ ” Cozart said Tuesday.

Exactly 164 miles east of Diddle Arena, there was a jolt of electricity in the office of Eastern Kentucky University men’s basketball coach A.W. Hamilton when the name “Isaiah Cozart” appeared in the transfer portal.

Not only was Cozart, having grown up in Richmond, a hometown hero, his potential as a rim-protecting post player would fill a void on the Colonels’ roster.

“Me and my assistant, Mike Allen, we jumped in the car and went down to see (Cozart) immediately,” Hamilton said. “Met him at a coffee shop right off (the WKU) campus. We spent as much time as Isaiah would let us spend with him.”

From that meeting, the seeds were planted that eventually brought Cozart home — and created one of the more unlikely success stories in Kentucky college hoops. Over the past two seasons, the 6-7, 240-pound Cozart has gone from a guy who couldn’t get on the court at WKU to a player so valuable, he’s hard for EKU to take off the floor.

‘Kind of like a nerd’

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