About 20 minutes into a conversation about one of the best players he’s instructed, Lancaster High School boys’ basketball coach Jarron Cauthen will tell you exactly what he’ll be doing Friday night.
“I’m going to be right over here on my couch,” Cauthen said, “with the rest of my family and whoever else wants to come over here and watch the game with me.”
There’s a caveat, though.
“But I’m going to be right front row center, and I’m probably going to be standing up the whole time,” the coach continued. He laughed. “I’m going to help Grant Leonard coach from my living room floor. And I’m going to help Jordan as much as I can.”
Lancaster’s Jordan Watford shoots a foul shot at the 2025 Class 4A state championships in Florence, S.C. TRACY KIMBALL tkimball@heraldonline.com
The “Jordan” who Cauthen is referring to is Jordan Watford, a 6-foot-5 freshman wing at Queens University of Charlotte. And the game? That’s the one at 7:35 p.m. ET Friday on TruTV, when the 15th-seeded Queens will take on 2-seeded Purdue in St. Louis in the first round of this year’s NCAA Tournament.
It’s a game that puts Lancaster, South Carolina, on the college basketball radar. On the “map,” so to speak. This wouldn’t be the first time, either. Watford, in fact, is the third player Cauthen has coached who has made it to the NCAA Tournament. The first was Ron Trapps, who did so at Coastal Carolina; the most recent was Sindarius Thornwell, who led the South Carolina Gamecocks to a Final Four run in 2017.
But ask specifically about his 10,000-person hometown 45 miles south of Charlotte, and Watford realizes how cool this moment is. He doesn’t need Cauthen’s reminder, necessarily; he knows it himself.
“I’ve talked to some people in Lancaster who’ve played college ball,” Watford told The Charlotte Observer in an interview this week. “Being able to make the tournament my first year in college ball, when some people don’t make it, be able to do that with Coach Leonard for the city of Lancaster, it’s just great.”
Former Lancaster High School basketball standout Jordan Watford now plays at Queens in Charlotte. TRACY KIMBALL tkimball@heraldonline.com Jordan Watford and his run with Queens
This moment doesn’t come without Watford’s decision to come to Queens. And that doesn’t come without Queens’ belief in him.
Not that such belief was hard to come by.
Watford graduated from Lancaster High School as the No. 1 recruit in all of South Carolina. Coach Cauthen awarded him his first varsity jersey at the end of his eighth grade season. He was the best player in Chester, Lancaster and York counties a few years later. By his junior year, he was fielding interest from a bevy of schools, from South Carolina to Clemson, from Mississippi State to Furman — still getting Division 1 interest despite the transfer portal dimming high school recruitment.
But by his senior year, one school rose above the rest. And that was Queens. The Royals coaching staff, led by Leonard and assistant coach Dan Bailey, was courtside at Watford’s high school games and on the road with him at AAU tournaments. Watford remembers last season when his family hosted Leonard and other staff members for an in-home visit, catered by soul food Lancaster institution Mully’s Restaurant. (”My mom made the sweets, and it was delicious,” Watford said. That meant “different types of cakes,” including his favorites: carrot cake and honey bun cake.)
Watford ultimately committed to Queens for a variety of reasons. “Trust,” as his high school coach said, was a big reason why. Trust in the coaching staff. In the facilities. In the ambition the school showed. Queens moved from Division II to Division I in 2023, and this is the first year the Royals were eligible for Division I postseason play after sitting out an NCAA-mandated transition phase.
“Wat’s awesome,” Leonard said. “Glad we’re part of his journey. Fantastic player but an even better person. I think he believed in our values, how we treat people. He wanted to be a part of a culture that’s about growth, that’s about development.
“He came here and got better and better, too. I love that players can see, ‘Hey, if I choose Queens, I’m going to get what I want out of this.’”
Winthrop University’s Pharrell Boyogueno heads to the basket around Queens University’s Jordan Watford on Nov. 3, 2025, at the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center. TRACY KIMBALL tkimball@heraldonline.com Jordan Watford can impact a team with ‘whatever you need’
Watford certainly has gotten what he wanted in his first year.
He’s the sixth-man on the most balanced teams in the Atlantic Sun, and really in all of mid-major basketball. Queens has six players averaging double figures; Watford averages 11.9 points per game — third-highest on the team.
He essentially plays starter minutes, too, averaging 20.6 minutes a game. And when the going gets tough, like against Central Arkansas in the ASUN championship game, Leonard can put the ball in Watford’s hands in the middle of a zone and expect him to make the right play.
It made Cauthen, his high school coach watching down in South Carolina, smile.
“There were 10 minutes left in the game,” Cauthen said. “They put Jordan in the middle of the zone. Every single time, Jordan was the outlet guy. He’d reverse pivot. … And all the shooter’s gotta do is catch and shoot. … He made the right plays.”
“I never had to tell Jordan, ‘Go get a bucket.’ I’d tell him, ‘Go make the right play.’ Now, if it called for a bucket, he’s gonna make it. If it calls for a pass, he’s gonna pass. Whatever you need, he’s going to do it.”
Lancaster’s Jordan Watford heads to the basket at the 2025 Class 4A championship game against North Augusta in Florence, S.C. TRACY KIMBALL tkimball@heraldonline.com ‘It’s a dream come true’
Watford called being a part of March Madness “a dream come true.” He couldn’t be more effusive of Leonard at Queens.
Cauthen, too.
Said Watford: “Coach Cauthen, the way he coached me up from eighth grade all the way to the end of my senior year, it’s what a kid would want. The coach being tough on you, but also being real enough to show true love to you. That’s what you want.”
That’s the only way Cauthen knows how. It’s why the coach still calls Watford after every game, why he checks in on him, why he imbues confidence in him at his every chance.
It’s also why, on Friday, he’ll be treating his living room floor as if he was at Queens’ game in St. Louis — telling him to get in the middle of the zone, beckoning him to get back on defense, letting him make his hometown proud.
Lancaster’s Jordan Watford shoots the ball against North Augusta’s Jamison Mckenzie at the 2025 Class 4A state championships in Florence, S.C. TRACY KIMBALL tkimball@heraldonline.com
The Charlotte Observer
Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways in which sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the Pro Football Writers Association, the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) group. He’s earned six APSE Top 10 distinctions for his coverage on a variety of topics, from billion-dollar stadium renovations to the small moments of triumph that helped a Panthers kicker defy the steepest odds in sports. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (S.C.) from 2019-22.
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