UTEP MBB Feature: Gilles Dekoninck

Gilles Dekoninck loves to compete. He'll do anything and everything to make himself and his teammates better. He's the type of player who will do the dirty work for the betterment of the program.

The redshirt junior sat out the 2019-20 campaign after playing in 20 games the previous season. Dekoninck made his way to the Sun City from Fresno State after following UTEP Head Coach Rodney Terry. It's been quite the journey for Dekoninck as he came to the United States from Diest, Belgium, while playing his high school ball at Huntington Prep prior to heading out west.

"I made a big decision to come to UTEP obviously because I like coach Terry's way of coaching and felt comfortable with the coaching staff," Dekoninck said. "But that first year I had a lot of fun because we had a good schedule, playing teams like Arizona and Marquette. It was especially fun for me because I had never played that many minutes. The coaches put a lot of trust in me that season."

Dekoninck opened his UTEP career with a 14-point performance in the season opener, while tallying 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting and pulling down seven boards at Southern Miss late in the year. Dekoninck's sophomore season gave him a real taste of college hoops after playing in only seven games as a freshman at Fresno State.

Terry used his first season in 2018-19 as the foundation for his coaching philosophy. The Miners were pretty much all new faces and Dekoninck was brought to the program to help push Terry's system – playing hard with great pace.

"I really love competing and going hard," Dekoninck said. "I like playing with a lot of energy because that's what coach [Terry] wants for me."

Dekoninck, along with Terry and assistant coach Nick Matson, made the decision to sit out the 2019-20 season. It gave Dekoninck the opportunity to grow and immerse himself in practice to master the system.

"I had a really good talk with coach Terry and coach Matson about that decision," he said. "They told me to prepare for this season and go really hard so I can to make the most out of the year. They told me to treat practice as games."

And Dekoninck did just that. His uniform was soaked in sweat, and he could be seen hustling, grinding and getting in the faces of his teammates to push them harder.

"I had been practicing hard, but around January when we dipped a little, coach told me to crank it up in practice," Dekoninck said. "He really wanted me to get the edge on some of the guys to see how they would react. I would talk a little trash and coach Terry told me to get on some nerves to get the competitiveness out of the guys."

Besides talking to the coaches about practice, Dekoninck and Bryson Williams also had a chat.

"I had a good talk with Bryson Williams about this too," he said. "We need to have more competitive practices, not just listening to the coaches and doing the drills. We need the players to get on the other players more about going hard and being tougher. You need to go stronger to the rim. Sometimes they have to learn the hard way if they don't want to learn. You might give an elbow here and there in a rebound, so they know that they have to box out."

The Miners, after their midseason slide, responded with a four-game winning streak down the stretch to advance to the Conference USA Tournament. Though Dekoninck sat out as a redshirt, he was just as important as the starting five that contributed to that run.

"I really enjoyed that," Dekoninck said. "I think it's literally the most fun part of our practice – the competitiveness. I'm all for it. It makes the team better."

Now, Dekoninck not only gets to hustle in practice, but he'll have the chance to once again compete on game day. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, along with quarantine over the last five months, Dekoninck made a positive from a negative situation.

"I put on like a good 15 pounds of muscle. I mean, this quarantine got me cooking and eating healthier," Dekoninck said enthusiastically. "Coach Terry told be to put on muscle to get better with my three-point shot and become a better defender. His expectation for me for this upcoming season is to be a defender, knock down open shots, and be the energy guy. I take pride in my energy."

Dekoninck will also be called upon to help with the newest Miners after playing in Terry's system for the last four years.

"I can teach the young guys how important it is to talk and play with a lot of energy," he said. "Those are key things, I think, how they are on the court energy wise, how to communicate and playing with pace. I hope to bring that this season."

Fun Fact about Gilles: "I really like photography, but I'm also really into fashion. I love clothes. They don't have to be expensive, sometimes I'll go to goodwill and find a super-nice shirt for a couple dollars. But I really like fashion and it goes hand-in-hand with pictures."

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