FAIRFAX, Va. — Otis Livingston II was wrapping up his senior year at Linden (N.J.) High School in the spring of 2015. He didn’t know where he would be playing college ball, and wasn’t sure it would be the next season.
And he most definitely had not heard from George Mason.
Meanwhile, Dave Paulsen was still splitting time between Lewisburg, Pa., where he had coached Bucknell for seven seasons, and his new job at Mason. He had work to do to revitalize the Patriots, and wasn’t sure exactly how much of his roster he would have to rebuild.
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On the first Monday in June, he got a call from Isaiah Jackson. The forward was transferring after his freshman year, and eventually landed at Providence. Paulsen knew what was coming next. Guard Eric Lockett, another rising sophomore, called him five minutes later to inform him he, too, was leaving.
Soon, he was on the phone with assistant Dane Fischer, who had just looked at film of an unsigned point guard from New Jersey and was impressed.
“Which was good, because I was about ready to drive off a bridge,” Paulsen said. “You’ve driven up there on Route 15. There’s a lot of them to drive off of. I get in here at 10, 10:30 and he’s got the film for me, we sit here and watch two or three game films and I’m like ‘All right, get me his number and let’s get him on the phone.’”
By that weekend, Livingston had visited Mason’s campus. A couple days later, he committed to join Paulsen’s rebuilding effort.
Tentative plans to attend prep school were scrapped. Livingston, a player whose entire list of Division I offers included Delaware State, Fairleigh Dickinson, Niagara and Robert Morris, was on his way to the Atlantic 10.
“Once they offered me, I was coming,” Livingston said. “It wasn’t that hard of a decision.”
And that’s how George Mason landed the man who would go on to become the school’s fourth-leading career scorer. Livingston is also first in starts and free throw percentage, second in assists and fourth in made 3-pointers.
As Livingston leads the Patriots (15-11, 9-4) into Saturday’s home game against Duquesne, the player who was part of one of the least time-intensive recruiting processes in Paulsen’s career has only three schedule home games left in his college career.
“You have to work your rear end off in recruiting,” Paulsen said. “It’s a relationship-driven business, but sometimes you have to get lucky.”
It’s appropriate Otis Livingston’s son ended up with a basketball in his hands at an early age.
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The older Livingston was a guard who split his college career between Kansas and Idaho. Ultimately, he stayed close to the game as a broadcaster in the New York area, and he was glad his oldest son embraced the game at a young age.
“It was kind of like the family business,” said Livingston, now the sports director at WCBS in New York. “His older sisters started at a young age as well. He was the one who was always dribbling the basketball pretty much all day. My wife was understanding of a lot of noise and a lot of broken stuff.”
The middle child of five, Otis Livingston II’s earliest memories involve basketball. He figures he had a ball in his hands by the time he was 3. He would spend summer days on the driveway of the family’s home in Plainfield, N.J., getting shots up. His dad, who worked mornings then, would join him after catching a nap after work.
By the time he was a sophomor at George Mason, Otis Livingston II had already established himself as someone to kickstart the rebuilding of the program. (Matthew O’Haren-USA TODAY Sports)Sometimes, the dining room would be converted into a makeshift court. Chairs would stand in as defenders to dribble around. Passes were bounced off the wall.
“Early on, it was really competitive in my household with my sisters and my brothers in everything we did,” Livingston said. “Sports, school, whatever. My dad and my mother fostered a really competitive household just nurturing the will to be great and to be the best at what you’re doing. Growing up, I kind of wanted to be the best on my own. It wasn’t because of them. It was like ‘I love this game and I want to be the best and I want to work at it.’”
He also figured out the best way to earn a place on the floor. As much as Livingston has made a mark as a scorer at George Mason, he arrived with a pass-first mentality that — combined with a 5-foot-11, 172-pound frame — might have contributed to getting overlooked, even after he led his high school to a state title as a junior.
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“I always said at our size, I was always the guy kids wanted to play with because guys knew they would get the ball from me,” Livingston’s father said. “They’d say ‘Give me that guy. Him, the short one.’ They knew I was a distributor, and Otis is one. You’ll always have a place on the court if you have an identity that you pass the basketball well.”
But when Livingston arrived at Mason, the Patriots needed scoring. (Truth be told, they needed just about everything.) And Livingston wound up leading the team in scoring average as a freshman, earning a spot on the Atlantic 10 all-rookie team.
Something deeper was underway, too. Paulsen recognized Livingston could be a long-term starting point guard, and throughout that 11-21 season found himself beckoning the freshman during stoppages in a raspy voice — “Otis! Otis! OTIS!” — and making clear any displeasure in the moment.
Livingston would nod. Then nod again. Then go back on the floor and get back to work.
“Especially early on, you could coach him super-hard and he didn’t let it impact him,” Paulsen said. “There’s a bond, at least for me, between the point guard and the coach. You want him to be an extension of the coach on the floor. It’s been pretty neat.”
It’s created a healthy back-and-forth appropriate for Livingston’s personality. He tends toward a calm approach, more like his mother than his father, but can also get a get a barb in when needed.
Earlier this season, Mason was on its way to a victory over James Madison and Paulsen created an in-game incentive. If the team hit all of its goals, including getting three consecutive stops six different times, he would do a grueling conditioning run rather than the team at a practice the next week.
During a timeout, as the Patriots closed in on their targets, Paulsen said “I’ve got my running shoes ready.” Livingston was ready with a wry retort.
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“He’s like ‘Coach, they’re walking shoes,’” Paulsen recalled.
An almost comical routine has developed after home games in the second half of Livingston’s career.
He’ll saunter into the postgame interview room and immediately look for the final stats. Invariably, a reporter will hand over his copy. Livingston then consumes as much data as he can in a minute or two before the questions come.
So what exactly is he looking for every time he scans the box score?
“Turnovers, assists, missed free throws,” Livingston said. “How many shots I took and points. I want to make sure I’m taking good shots and I’m not shooting too much.”
That hasn’t been an issue this season, as junior Justin Kier has emerged as the Patriots’ top scorer. But Livingston’s controlled some games with his passing and also delivered a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to down Fordham 71-68 on Jan. 19.
“It’s cool, especially coming from the situation I came from, not getting that many looks and coming to a school and be top five in scoring and top whatever in assists, it means a lot.”
Livingston won’t end up as the school’s career assists leader (Curtis McCants had 598 in three seasons in the mid-1990s under Paul Westhead), but he is the only player in school history with four 100-assist seasons.
“Just expanding my game,” Livingston said. “Not being a one-dimensional threat. That’s something I’m still working on, as the season’s going along: How can I impact the games in more ways than one? It can be scoring, it can be passing, however the game is going. I like to read the flow of the game.”
Livingston got off to a slow start, as did the Patriots, and he faced something rare for him during his college career: External criticism. Some of it was a 2-5 record a few weeks into a season that carried greater expectations. Some of it was a decline in scoring, which can be a misleading indicator.
Teammates, though, realize the value he brings as he closes in on 1,800 career points. He sits 156 points behind program legend George Evans for the No. 3 spot in school history.
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“His role can be this or that each game,” Kier said. “Every single game, it can be ‘I score 30’ or it can be ‘I get 10 rebounds.’ He’s that good, that he can do every aspect of the game. He can pick and choose. If it’s not his night making shots, then he’s going to find people. It’s cool to see how his game has changed. I know a bunch of guys are bashing him and the outside world is bashing him. They don’t know how important he is to our team.”
Five games remain in Mason’s regular season, plus the A-10 tournament and the potential for the postseason. It isn’t the time for serious reflection, not yet. There are more practices, more scouting reports, more everything to navigate.
But in the context of his whirlwind recruitment after getting bypassed by so many other schools, there is definite satisfaction with how the last four years have unfolded.
“It’s cool, especially coming from the situation I came from, not getting that many looks and coming to a school and be top five in scoring and top whatever in assists, it means a lot,” Livingston said. “Four years ago, when I wasn’t getting a lot of offers, I wasn’t even thinking about this. I was thinking ‘Where am I going to play at?’ it’s just awesome. It’s truly a blessing and playing for a school like this.”
And for Mason’s program. The Patriots are best known for their Final Four run in 2006, and they remained a power in the Colonial Athletic Association for several years under Jim Larranaga. But they haven’t been to the NCAA tournament since 2011, and struggled to acclimate to the A-10 after they made the jump in 2013-14.
If Paulsen makes Mason a regular A-10 contender — and he’s made considerable progress as Mason has gone 27-22 in the league over the last three seasons — Livingston’s role as a program cornerstone will have played a large part.
“Otis’ impact, his production, his performance far exceeds his measureables,” Paulsen said. “He shouldn’t be as good as he is, and it’s just that he works his rear end off and he’s just a bulldog of a competitor. He’s willed himself into being a really, really good player … I don’t think there’s any way you can’t say he’s one of the top five players to play at George Mason — and at a crucial time, helping us hopefully solidify and bring the program back to where it had been.”
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The first step is getting back to the NCAA tournament, something that could happen in the wide-open A-10. The Patriots have dealt with injuries throughout the year, but are on track to secure a double bye in the conference tournament with a strong finish.
A riveting March would be a fitting finish to Livingston’s time in Fairfax. But he’s already done more than enough to define his Mason career.
“He’s always going to be remembered,” Kier said. “That’s the greatest thing about O, and it’s another thing I’ve taken from him, is how much this community loves him. Since I stepped on campus, everybody loves him. The way they call his name out for Mason Madness, you just hear the crowd go crazy. Everybody loves him, and that’s because of him. It’s because of what he’s done for this community and what he’s done for this program, and that’s exactly how I want to leave George Mason — loved like Otis.”
(Top photo of Otis Livingston by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
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