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 Inside College Basketball
Posted: Tuesday May 11, 1999 03:46 PM Rating the Recruiting Hauls A string of defections has the once rock-solid Duke program suddenly looking a little shaky By Seth Davis
It has been barely a month since Mike Krzyzewski had his arthritic left hip surgically replaced, and the Duke coach is already saying his rehabilitation is "way ahead of schedule." Before surgery his left leg was an inch and a half shorter than his right, but the artificial hip corrected that. He has graduated from crutches to a cane, and his mobility is steadily improving thanks to physical therapy in a swimming pool. "I still have to take it one step at a time," he says, "but it feels good to stand straight."
Of the four departures Brand's was the least surprising. He is considered by most NBA executives to be a certain top five pick, which is why Krzyzewski gave Brand his full blessing. Avery, however, made his decision without the coach's approval. Having twice told Coach K face-to-face that he was going to come back for his junior season, Avery returned with his mother, Terry Simonton, to Krzyzewski's house on the night of April 15 and informed the coach that he had changed his mind. To Simonton's dismay Krzyzewski told them he would not support the decision because he didn't feel Avery's draft position was strong enough. The school announced Avery's decision the following day in a press release. "I understood where Coach was coming from, but I don't think he really understood how tough it is for me financially at home," says Avery, who has since dropped out of school. "This is what's best for my family." Burgess was considered by some recruiting experts to be the best player in his class when he came out of Woodbridge High in Irvine, Calif., but he averaged just 14.1 minutes a game during his two seasons in Durham. "I just felt I was being buried there. I need a new start," he says. The 6'10" Burgess also believes the Duke coaches hampered his abilities by insisting he bulk up to 250 pounds. "I think they wanted me to be this big thug down low." Rick Majerus has told Burgess that if he comes to Utah, the first thing he'll need to do is drop down to his old playing weight of 235 to 240. Though most of the will-they-stay-or-go speculation centered on Brand and Avery late in the season, some draft mavens believe that Maggette may be selected ahead of even Brand. The freshman wasn't even thinking of coming out until, during the first week of the NCAA tournament, he read an article in the Chicago Tribune that said he might go as high as No. 1 in the draft if he came out. That got him thinking seriously about his prospects. He even sought counsel from fellow Chicagoan Michael Jordan. (MJ's advice: Stay in school.) If Krzyzewski was rankled by Avery's departure, he must really be angry with Maggette, whom he advised to return for at least another season. Still, Coach K has plenty of reason to look forward to next season. Duke's incoming six-man freshman class is the best in the nation, and the worst of his physical ailments finally appears to be behind him. "How you react to things is what matters, and I intend to react positively," says Krzyzewski.
Rhode Island's Ambitions: Rhode Island sophomore forward Lamar Odom abruptly left school for nearly two weeks last month. After he returned, the Queens, N.Y., native offered no specifics for the impromptu hiatus, telling the Providence Journal-Bulletin on April 22, "I had family things I had to take care of, and I could only do that in New York." A sudden disappearing act just before final exams would in many cases jeopardize the eligibility of a student, but that was not the case with Odom. "We want to make sure Lamar has every opportunity to return academically," Rams athletic director Ron Petro said last week. "We have to wait until the end of the semester to evaluate him, but he's here now, and he's attending classes. There's a lot of pressure on that kid." It's not the first time Odom has disappeared. He also went AWOL for two weeks and skipped his final exams in December 1997, before he was even admitted as a full-time student at Rhode Island. All was quickly forgiven, and Odom was granted extra time to make up the work he had missed. In fact, rarely has a university so assiduously tried to placate a single star player. After coach Jim Harrick resigned on March 31 to take the head job at Georgia, Rhode Island named Odom to the nine-member search committee to find Harrick's replacement. Odom attended only one meeting of the committee, but on April 16 the school accommodated his wishes anyway when it gave the job to second-year assistant coach Jerry DeGregorio, whose only previous Division I experience was a three-year stint as an assistant at Hofstra. It didn't hurt that DeGregorio is something of a father figure to Odom and was the main reason that Odom came to Rhode Island after UNLV withdrew its scholarship offer to him in the wake of questions about his standardized test score (SI, July 7, 1997). Petro says DeGregorio's appointment was not preordained, but the school's search for other candidates seemed a bit halfhearted. The only other people interviewed were former Charlotte Hornets coach Dave Cowens (who was offered the job but turned it down) and first-year Loyola-Chicago coach Larry Farmer, who had been an assistant to Harrick at Rhode Island two seasons ago. Even DeGregorio, 37, says it "never even crossed my mind" that he would be Harrick's replacement, though he's also making no apologies. "I believe I've paid my dues," he says. Odom, of course, could make a mockery of the whole process by announcing this week that he'll turn pro. The deadline for entering the NBA draft is May 16. Rhode Island's need to have him back in a Rams uniform extends beyond next season's win-loss record. The school hopes in the near future to build a $50 million arena, a project that is being spearheaded by governor Lincoln Almond, a Rhode Island graduate. It is an ambitious undertaking for a school with such a modest basketball pedigree. Time will tell whether it was worth the cost. The Spring signing period officially ends on May 15, but so many of the top prospects have already committed that the jury of recruiting mavens has rendered its decision on which schools had the top classes. SI surveyed a panel of experts and came up with this list of star-search winners.
Issue date: May 17, 1999
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