Prairie View senior guard Dontae Horne has delivered some masterful games for the Panthers this season.
There was the game when he dropped a Prairie View record 46 against Southern University. There was also that three-game stretch in which Horne scored 30 or more points against Jackson State, Alcorn, and Alabama State. Then there were the back-to-back weeks Horne was named SWAC Men’s Basketball Player of the Week.
Perhaps his biggest moment came in the regular-season finale against rival Texas Southern, in which Horne scored 26 points in an upset win on the Tigers’ home floor.
But as electrifying as Horne’s highlights have been for the Panthers’ fans and even his teammates, his internal take has been quite different.
“Honestly, I really don’t be impressed,” Horne said in a recent conversation with the Defender. “Like the game, I had 40, and we lost, it really didn’t click to me that I had that many points. I saw it but I was more worried about the L.
“I feel like I can always do better than I did. But that’s just me being hard on myself.”
This outlook has come after years of figuring it out and making it work when the good times didn’t last. The fifth-year senior from Memphis has bounced around from Eastern Oklahoma State College to Howard College, to Texas State, and then to Georgia Southern.
His college journey ends at Prairie View, where he has gone from averaging in single-digits scoring at his last two stops, to becoming one of the Panthers’ top scorers, an all-around player, and a counted upon leader in his one-and-only season on the Hill.
Horne is the Panthers’ leading scorer and the third-leading scorer in the SWAC with 20.2 points per game, just ahead of teammate Tai-Reon Joseph (19.1) in both instances. Horne is currently leading the eighth-seeded Panthers in the SWAC Tournament, where they have won their first two games, including the quarterfinals upset of No.1-seeded Bethune-Cookman, in which Horne had 30 points on 11 of 16 shooting from the field.
PV, which is 16-17 on the season, has advanced to the semifinals, where the Panthers will meet the winner of the Texas Southern-Alabama A&M game on Friday.
Even Horne finds it hard to imagine the difference in how his college basketball career started out and how it is ending.
“I would have said, you are lying,” the 6-foot-4 shooting guard said when asked if he ever imagined his career going the way it has. “I wouldn’t have believed it.
“My journey was always different. In high school, I was a good player, small though. Had coaches tell me they will look at me, and then they’d go away. I went to a prep school, which was a bad prep school, and had to go to another prep school in Memphis, and actually got some looks JUCO-wise. Then it went up from there.
“I would have stayed at Eastern Oklahoma, but my coach retired,” he continued. “I’ve been through a lot. But like I said, I’m grateful. It is what it is. Stuff happens. That’s how I look at it now.”
Horne wound up in the transfer portal last spring, looking for an opportunity and not NIL or revenue-sharing money. Prairie Assistant Coach Spencer Robertson vetted him and saw promise.
But Spencer admits Horne has been more than he bargained for.
“I didn’t see him being this good,” Spencer said. “I knew he would be good just because of the way we play and his ability to get downhill and stuff like that, and his ability to score. I knew he would be good, but I didn’t know he would be this good. He has been a big surprise.”
Horne and Joseph – both fifth-year seniors playing collegiately at their fifth school – have given the Panthers and head coach Byron Smith the scoring punch the offense has needed. When one isn’t on, the other has been on fire, and then there have been the games where they both have been unstoppable.
Their high-volume scoring abilities are the reason the Panthers led the SWAC in scoring most of the season and finished the regular season as the No. 2 scoring team at 80.0 points per game.
The duo made the All-SWAC Team last week, with Horne earning a spot on the First Team after emerging as the most complete player in the conference. He made 26 of 29 regular-season starts, while shooting an efficient 45% from the field, adding 35 three-pointers, 82% from the free throw line, while finishing third in the conference in steals with 2.0 a game.
“He has gotten better from start to finish,” said Smith. “He was always talented, and he just took his time to fit in. And when Joseph got banged up, he just turned it on. I think he is the best scoring guard in the league.”
Horne credits Smith for allowing him to be himself and to play through his mistakes, considerations that weren’t afforded to him during his previous stops.
“Coach Smith has been a tough coach, but that’s the type of coach I needed,” said Horne, who graduated last year from Georgia Southern with a degree in business. “He is helping me push myself to my limits, even if I played good, he wants me to play great the next time. If I play great, he wants me to play even better the next time.
“That’s what’s been the most important thing to and that’s what has helped me get through this season.”
In the process, Horne has been allowed to conclude an up-and-down college career on a positive note.
“I’m going to be happy. I feel like I went out with a bang,” said Horne, who is participating in the SWAC Tournament this week with the Panthers. “You never know with NCAA rules … you never know what will happen. I feel like this year, if it is my last year, like it is my last year, I feel like I went out with a bang.
“I’ve been to many places, dealt with many coaches, been in many different climates, environments. You name it. All of those things have come together and molded me into the man I am today. I feel like if I hadn’t went though that adversity, I wouldn’t be playing how I am today.”
– Dontae Horne
“I want to end it with a championship, for sure. You don’t always get what you want. Regardless, I‘m going to be happy because I got a great opportunity. Coach could have recruited anybody else, but he decided to stick with me.”
Horne hopes to continue his basketball career at the next level. Where that is, isn’t as important as the opportunity to keep furthering his basketball dream.
“I’m trying to go pro, for sure. A couple of scouts and agents hit me up,” Horne said. “Still, the NBA is the goal, the G-League is the goal, overseas is the goal. I’m never going to quit my goals. If I get there, that’s where I want to be.
“I’m just trying to play at the highest level of basketball that I can play at. That’s all I want to do.
“A lot of people didn’t think I would be able to play D-1. A lot of people didn’t think I would play in college. I always told myself that I want to keep going higher and higher. That’s my mindset for myself.”
