|
|
 |
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Last Port of call 'Old men' Evans, Jenkins shine in NBA audition
TIDEWATER, Va. -- The college season may have reached its official end with the NCAA title game a week ago Monday, but its coda took place over four days thereafter, from Wednesday through Saturday, at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament here. Portsmouth is the last-chance saloon for all manner of 'tweeners and dreamers. It's where such NBA stars as Tim Hardaway, Avery Johnson, Jerome Kersey, Dan Majerle, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and John Stockton all went to be discovered. Two years ago a player from Division III Augsburg College in Minneapolis cadged an invite to the PIT after someone pulled out with an injury; Devean George went on to make the all-tournament team and, several months later, become the first DIII player to be chosen in the draft's first round, by the Lakers. Who would be this year's success story? To find out, scouts sat four deep behind the baseline last week, to determine who among the 64 college seniors here deserved a bid to the next round of auditions, at the Desert Classic in Phoenix, during the first week of May. This PIT had a festive air. There was the cleanheaded Darryl Dawkins, coach of the USBL's Lehigh Valley Valley Dawgs, who was as concerned with providing his public with autographs as he was with scoping out prospects for his roster. Double D wore a Valley Dawgs polo shirt and one huge gold hoop earring. There was the Mother of All Bulls, Chicago GM Jerry Krause, not sitting secretively away from the scouting pack as has long been his wont. "He's friendly all of a sudden," one scout remarked. "But I guess he's got a lot to be humble about these days." There were the European bird dogs, including Walter Sczcerbiak, the Long Island-based eyes and ears of the Spanish A.C.B. and the father of the Timberwolves' Wally, as well as corpulent agent Nur Gencer of Istanbul, whose physique is immortalized in the name of his business, Fatman Inc. Such college coaches as Indiana's Mike Davis and Iowa's Steve Alford, in town for the Boo Williams Invitational for high-schoolers taking place across the water, dropped by, too. (No, Billy Packer didn't ask them to play one-on-one for the job in Bloomington.) And there was former Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins, striking the keynote at the celebrity luncheon in his inimitable fashion. PIT participant Mike Mardesich of Maryland became, in Cremins' marble-filled mouth, "Mike Mardich." Some players looked good ( Quincy Wadley of Temple, Mike McDonald of Stanford, Darren Kelly of Texas, Shernard Long of Georgia State). Others didn't ( Marcus Griffin of Illinois, Robert O'Kelley of Wake Forest). With Stanford's Ryan Mendez out on the floor and veteran NBA scout Al Menendez in the stands, we can only be grateful that Cremins didn't do the introductions. As ever, agents would post up players in the lobby of the Portsmouth Holiday Inn Old Towne. At the PIT it's common to find fringe agents and wannabes bottomfeeding for clients suddenly free of NCAA rules on eligibility. Organizers have long railed against the practice of agents providing players with female companionship over the tournament's four days. Happily, this didn't appear to be the problem this year that it has been in the past. But the most encouraging development to these jaded eyes was the performance of two players on the team sponsored by K Plus Services. One is a 30-year-old power forward. The other is a 26-year-old shooting guard. Each was particularly welcome, as the NBA gets inundated with more and more adolescents who think that life experience constitutes having to decide which traveling-team coach offers the more fully loaded Cadillac Escalade. George Evans, a 6-foot-7, 230-pounder from George Mason, is the Gulf War vet who nearly sent Maryland home in the first round of the NCAAs all by himself. Seven years in the Army left him poised, solid and crafty enough that he led the Colonial Athletic Association in steals this season. I loved the tableau just before the second half of one of K Plus' games: Every player warmed up by lofting jump shots, except Evans, who was spread-eagled at halfcourt, stretching. If the Patriots' patriot doesn't get drafted, it'll only be because his advanced age scares teams off. As for Horace Jenkins, his life seemed to be falling apart during his senior year at Elizabeth (N.J.) High. Academically ineligible to play ball, he found out that he was going to be an unwed father. So he learned the electrician's trade to support his son. He did a turn as a postal worker. Eventually he played a season of junior-college ball, and began to curry quite a reputation around the Garden State -- The Electrician once lit up Duke's Jason Williams for 49 points in a Jersey Shore Summer League game -- and, eventually, at William Patterson University in Wayne, N.J. This season he was named the Division III Player of the Year. Jenkins may stand only 6-1, with spindly legs, knock knees and a head fastened to his neck at an odd angle. But he has a bottomless appetite for defense, a fearless first step, and a 40-inch-plus vertical that helped him win the slam-dunk contest at the Final Four in Minneapolis. I was delighted to see K Plus reach the final, where Evans and Jenkins lost, 85-82, to PIT champion Beach-Barton Ford and its star, Rashad Phillips of Detroit, who was a most deserving MVP. But neither of the old men disappointed. Is it George Evans from George Mason, or George Mason from George Evans? Horace Jenkins from William Patterson, or William Patterson from Horace Jenkins? You're forgiven if you can't tell the difference. After four days in Portsmouth, however, the scouts all can. Sports Illustrated senior writer Alexander Wolff is author of Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure, which will be published in January 2002 by Warner Books. Send comments to thehooplife@aol.com.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
