Sports Inciter
GARRETT WAIT
Sports Assistant
Politics. No matter what side of the fence you sit on after the latest election, you know that politics are a huge part of life. The Pepperdine men’s basketball team is all about politics too — it seems to be a running theme for the team lately.
Yes, we all know about the travails of last year’s team. Yes, they struggled rebounding the ball in the preseason. Yes, they didn’t have one of their best frontcourt players for most of the season. And yes, some people had their feelings hurt, and politics may be why some people aren’t returning.
Politics. Red states versus blue states. Democrats versus Republicans. Athletes versus the NCAA.
Yakhouba “Kub” Diawara turned out to be one of the best players in the West Coast Conference, but during the Waves’ non-conference schedule, the 6-foot-7 Frenchman had little hope of setting foot on the court for Paul Westphal’s squad.
The NCAA destroyed Diawara’s chances of earning real national recognition after they found out that Kub had played on a French pro team in high school, though he was never paid for playing in the games.
After transferring from College of Southern Idaho, Diawara sat out the first 17 games of the season as the NCAA reviewed his case. By the time they decided to let him play, the Waves were a disappointing 6-11, dropping their home game against Gonzaga, a game the Waves may have been more competitive in with Kub in the lineup.
Diawara went on to average nearly 19 points and 6.6 severely needed rebounds per game once he became eligible. The Waves finished the season at 15-16, meaning the team was 9-5 with Kub in the lineup. You can make a case that the NCAA ruined the season for the Waves, but I won’t do that here. That’s for another column, another time.
Politics. Elephants against donkeys. Left versus right. Young versus old. Players versus coaches?
Shaun Davis should have been a great player for the Waves. During his freshman season he showed flashes of brilliance, including a 20-point effort in a win against Colorado and a 21-point burst in the very next game against eventual Final Four participant Oklahoma State.
However, something about Westphal’s coaching policies rubbed Davis the wrong way, and he began to show his immaturity later on in the season. His minutes began to wane and his body language was noticeably different.
It came to a head on a road trip to Portland when tempers allegedly flared and Davis was sent home and suspended indefinitely. Davis no longer attends Pepperdine and a career with so much promise and potential was ended prematurely because of politics. I don’t want to speculate as to what happened on the road trip that was so bad, but one can assume that if Westphal and the rest of the coaches agreed that Davis should be immediately removed from the team, he must have really overstepped the bounds of the athlete-coach relationship.
Politics. Bureaucracy and red tape. Judge, jury and hangman. Sometimes, crime and punishment go hand in hand with politics. Terrance Johnson found that out earlier this season.
TJ was the most exciting basketball player I’ve ever seen play. He could rise like he was some superhuman being, effortlessly floating above the rim, seemingly just waiting for the ball to hit his hands so he could make some clown trying to guard him look like, well, a clown.
He was a key member of last year’s team, he lit up San Diego for 30, mixing in one of those signature Terrance stretches where he hit a couple threes in a row then absolutely murdered some guy on a fastbreak, dunking on him and then flexing and baring his gold fronts.
Terrance was the nicest guy you could meet on campus, too. He was funny and put you at ease whenever you took the time to talk to him. However, something went awry in the classroom for TJ, and during the summer he was declared ineligible. Now, the team lacks their most explosive player and one of the leaders in the locker room.
Politics. What can you do for your country? We answered that question on Tuesday. How politics will affect the 2004-05 Waves’ basketball season has yet to be answered.
The optimistic will say the freshman class is solid, Kub is able to play, and so far everybody seems to be healthy (knock on wood). The pessimistic will say that the team is lacking depth in the backcourt and is lacking a proven leader in the locker room.
Politics. A look to the future and a blast from the past. Optimists and pessimists. Which side are you on?
11-04-2004
