24. TCU
With high-scoring Lee Nailon returning after a near jump to the NBA, Billy Tubbs is dreaming of a 200-point game
Posted: Wednesday November 18, 1998 02:17 PM
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The
6'9" Nailon loves to get out on the
break.
David E. Klutho |
The
rapper
Master P was playing on the boom box
outside TCU's Moncrief Hall one day last month when two Horned
Frogs started flipping each other off. On a dare Thomas
McTyer, a
5'11" guard, performed a flawless backflip. "Now
you, Prince!" he said, pointing to
5'10" guard Prince Fowler, who
duplicated the feat. "Now you, Lee!" laughed Fowler,
pointing to Lee Nailon,
a
6'9", 230-pound senior forward with the tumbling prowess
of a
brontosaurus—or so Fowler thought. "I could do
that,"
Nailon said.
Whereupon he stopped and popped the first backflip of his
life.
It wasn't, however, Nailon's most significant reversal of
late. After averaging 24.9 points last year, third best in
the nation, Nailon was ready to leave for the NBA, if he
was assured of being a top 15 pick. But scouts at a
predraft camp in Chicago
voiced doubts about Nailon's agility on the perimeter,
prompting him to stay put. (The pros, obviously, never saw
him do any backflips.) That skepticism was news to
TCU coach Billy Tubbs, who is used to seeing Nailon dominate
the post one minute—his
lefthanded baby hook is unblockable—and lead the fast break
the next. "Lee is a perfect fit for our system,"
Tubbs says. "We don't run around setting screens for
him. We just give him the ball and tell him to go
one-on-one."
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| STARTING LINEUP |
| POS. | HT. | CLASS | KEY STAT |
| SF Vladimir Jaksic | 6'8" | Jr. | 12.7 ppg** |
| PF Lee Nailon* | 6'9" | Sr. | 24.9 ppg |
| C Marquise Gainous | 6'9" | Jr. | 24.5 ppg** |
| SG Derale Wilson | 6'5" | Jr. | 10.0 ppg* |
| PG Prince Fowler* | 5'10" | Sr. | 6.1 apg |
'97-98 record: 27-6
Final rank (coaches' poll): No. 25
*Returning starter
**ppg as junior college sophomore
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The TCU
system, of course, is the college hoops version of the Freudian
id: unrestrained. The Horned Frogs led the nation with 97.2
points a game last season, and Tubbs has visions of racking
up 200 against Division II Central Oklahoma on Dec. 12. But
with only
Nailon and Fowler back as starters, the scoring burden will be on
three juco transfers. The best of the lot is
6'9" Marquise Gainous, who gives TCU a second threat in
the paint to keep defenses from
double-teaming Nailon. (Gainous outscored Nailon, in fact, in
preseason
scrimmages.)
A former juco player himself, Tubbs boasts that he can land
any JC prospect in the country. Yet he still escapes from
the rigors of scouting for a little R
and R. In October, Tubbs spent a week in
Hawaii as a panelist at a beauty pageant. "That's tough
trying to judge 180 women in bikinis," he says.
"But as you know,
I'm a great judge of
talent."
—Grant Wahl
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