A Season Inside (18 page)

In the meantime, Amp Davis had been cleared to play because his trial on cheating charges had been delayed until the next semester. Barnes had decidedly mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, he desperately needed Davis. On the other, he was trying to build a program that would have integrity and players who went to class. An accused cheater hardly fit that mold.

“Amp swears he didn’t do it,” Barnes said. “He admitted to it the first time so I’m inclined to believe him. But who knows? (Athletic
Director) Jack (Kvancz) says we go by innocent until proven guilty. If I find out he is guilty, though, he’s gone, I don’t care what happens in the damn trial.”

As he talked, Barnes was sitting in the empty stands of George Washington University’s Smith Center. It was about two hours before George Mason would play George Washington and Barnes was trying to keep himself relaxed.

For him, this was a big game. In a city where Maryland and Georgetown dominate the fans and the news, the mid-sized schools like GW, Mason, American, Navy, and Howard spend a lot of time scuffling for attention. George Mason had never beaten GW (0–5), and Barnes thought a victory over the Colonials would be a major breakthrough for his program.

What’s more, both teams were coming off major upset victories: Mason over Wichita State and GW at Michigan State. The winner of this game would make some serious headlines in Washington. Barnes felt his team—and his school—needed that.

But he was concerned. Exams were coming up. Even though it was early in the season, he thought his players were a little tired. He had worked them very hard in preseason and demanded a lot from them. “It’s a big gamble,” he said. “As hard as I’ve been on them, I could lose them. But I think this is the only way to get it done.”

The need to beat GW and end the 0–5 skein was what Barnes emphasized to the team before tip-off. “Whether you know it or not, GW looks down on us,” he told the players. “They think they’re in a better league [Atlantic 10] than we are and they have a better program than we do. Well, why shouldn’t they feel that way? We’ve never beaten them. Tonight is the time to change that and the only way to do that is kick their tails.”

Barnes used this approach for two reasons: It made sense, and his assistants had told him that the players really disliked GW. “It’s amazing,” Barnes said with a grin, “what a motivator hate is in competition.”

He was much more relaxed before this game than before Seton Hall. Two victories, especially the one over Wichita State, had helped his self-confidence. But he was concerned about how his team would come back three days after a major victory. “I’m worried,” he said, “that they’re going to start thinking they’re good.”

His misgivings were well placed. GW was going to fade badly later
in the season but in December it was playing solid basketball. And the Patriots seemed to think they could race the ball up the floor without running any semblance of an offense and control the game. After nine minutes, it was 15–14, GW. Then, it got ugly. The Colonials went on an 11–1 run to make it 26–15. Nothing went right for GMU. Kenny Sanders missed two free throws and two lay-ups. Davis and Steve Smith kept turning the ball over. Barnes tried a time-out to calm them down. It didn’t work. After Sanders finally made a lay-up to make it 26–17, GW finished the half with a 14–1 binge for a 40–18 lead. The last ten minutes, the margin had been 25–4—Mason had only one field goal.

It was, to put it mildly, humiliating.

Barnes was wild—genuinely wild—at halftime. Fury is not really in his nature. He is a mild-mannered southerner with an easy-going drawl and a quick smile. All of that was gone now.

“You win one fucking game and think you’re good! One game and that was a fluke! You let them just go out and kick your ass completely and totally! You don’t care that you were horrible! That’s what bothers me!”

Barnes turned as if to write something on the blackboard, stopped and slammed his hand full-force into the blackboard. It fell over with a crash.

No one moved. Barnes went on. “You guys think you want it, you think you know how to win, but you don’t. All I ask out of you is forty hard minutes every night. Well, you’ve gotten your ass kicked for twenty minutes now and I’m telling you right now you better go out and kick theirs in the next twenty.
Goddamn IT!
Do you know they’re sitting over there right now
laughing
at you? I don’t know about y’all but that makes me want to get sick!”

He stormed into the hallway, his coaches behind him. Once the door had shut, Barnes turned quickly to his trainer, Frank Novakoski, and said, “Get me some ice, I think I broke my hand.” It wasn’t broken, but Barnes was feeling plenty of pain. He wasn’t about to show it in front of the players, though.

The second half was a little better. For fourteen minutes, the Patriots made little dent in the lead, still trailing 61–43 with 6:30 left Finally, they put on a desperate rally, pulling to within 69–63 with 1:11 to go. But a chance to get within four was missed. After GW’s Joe Dooley had missed the front end of a one-and-one, his teammate Mike Jones somehow slipped inside to tip the ball in. That made it 71–63 with 1:05 left and killed the rally. The final was 76–69.

“At least you didn’t die,” Barnes told his players. “But don’t be satisfied with that comeback. You stunk. You shouldn’t sleep tonight. I know I won’t. This should show you with our style we can come back on anyone. But it should also show you that you can get your ass kicked by anyone if you aren’t ready to play.”

He walked out of the locker room. Assistant Coach Mark Davis said softly, “We played six good minutes.”

Barnes nodded. “I know that. It’s my fault.”

He would be up all night looking at tape. It was three weeks into his coaching career.

It seemed as if he scored every time he touched the ball. Walker Lambiotte was loose, his self-confidence flowing. It was a cold Friday afternoon and Northwestern was going through its final workout before a Saturday game against Rollins.

“He gives us another level, talent-wise,” Coach Bill Foster said, watching Lambiotte. “We haven’t exactly had a lot of guys here the last few years who could shoot like he does and were good athletes, too.”

Unfortunately for Foster, Lambiotte would not be any help the next day, or for that matter, during the entire season. Because he was a transfer, Lambiotte had to sit out the season. He could practice with his new team but on game day he sat on the end of the bench in street clothes, twitching with pent-up nervous energy.

“I never thought the day would come in my career where I was jealous of guys for running sprints,” Lambiotte said, laughing. “Part of playing basketball is bitching about having to run. The first time the other guys had to run and I didn’t, it about killed me. Playing games is something I’ve taken for granted all my life. Now, I just watch.”

In some ways, Lambiotte’s is a common story in college basketball: Kid picks a school, finds out he isn’t going to play as much as he thought, and transfers in order to play more. In an era where many coaches employ roughly the same tactics as a used-car salesman to sell their schools, players find themselves disappointed with shocking regularity.

Lambiotte had left N.C. State for the usual reason: playing time. But the road that led him to that decision was anything but usual. Coming
out of high school, Lambiotte was tagged as a can’t-miss player. In his junior year, he had proven himself in the All-Star camps against the best players, and had been the subject of an intensive recruiting fight that involved N.C. State, Virginia, Duke, Virginia Tech, and Maryland—among others.

Lambiotte was a coach’s dream. Although he was from a rural area, Poquoson, Virginia, he came from a family that certainly knew college was more than just sports. His father, who had been an outstanding player in his own right at Richmond, was a lawyer. His older brother, Kenny, had played basketball at Virginia for two years before pulling one of the more unusual transfers ever, moving from Virginia to Richmond and from basketball to football. He had done so well playing quarterback at Richmond that he ended up making it with the Philadelphia Eagles as a backup pro quarterback.

In a family of athletes (his sister is also a basketball player) Walker was the best athlete. He had learned basketball from his father and brother; his rivalry with his brother was such that the two often didn’t talk after playing one-on-one. By his senior year, Walker was 6–6. He could run, jump-shoot—and read and write.

His decision to attend N.C. State had a lot to do with the charm of Jim Valvano. Lambiotte liked Valvano, his father loved Valvano. The recruitment of Lambiotte by State was what coaches call “a living room job” Valvano had won the recruiting fight sitting in the Lambiottes’ living room.

At the end of his last high school season, Lambiotte played in all the big-time all-star games. Once again, it was apparent that he could hold his own against the best. He was voted MVP in one of the games and played well in all of them. He went to State thinking he had a chance to start as a freshman.

His thinking was correct. Lambiotte was a starter or the first sub off the bench at the beginning of the season. But, as the year progressed, his playing time started to dwindle. Sometimes Valvano would start him, take him out after a few minutes, and leave him on the bench the rest of the evening.

This was a very good State team led by Chris Washburn, Charles Shackleford, and senior guards Nate McMillan and Ernie Myers; they reached the NCAA Final Eight. Lambiotte wasn’t thrilled about his spotty playing time but felt that was part of being a freshman.

“Coach V was always wild with playing time,” Lambiotte said.
“There were games where I would play most of the first half, then not play at all the second half. But I understood. We had a lot of talent and I was a freshman so I figured that was part of the learning process. But then when it kept happening my sophomore year, I started to get worried about it.”

The Wolfpack was not nearly as good in 1987 as it had been in 1986. Washburn had opted to turn pro, Shackleford was struggling with inconsistency, and Kenny Drummond, the junior-college point guard, dropped off the team and out of school at midseason.

Once again, Lambiotte was often a starter. But once again he would start, come out, and often not return. Then late in the season, when Valvano changed the team’s tempo, deciding to walk the ball up, and began playing Quentin Jackson and Vinny Del Negro extensively, Lambiotte’s playing time went to almost zero. He was confused and hurt.

“What was really bothering me was that I didn’t feel like I was getting any better,” he said. “I think coming out of high school I had a pretty good understanding of my strengths and weaknesses. My shot wasn’t really a good shot technically. I could get it to fall, but it needed work. I wasn’t becoming a better player. That worried me.”

By midseason, Lambiotte and his family were talking transfer. This was somewhat traumatic for the family because they had already lived through one transfer and never dreamed they would find themselves going through it again with Walker. Unlike a lot of players who get benched, Lambiotte didn’t feel anger. He still liked Valvano, but felt his first concern had to be what was best for him. And staying at State might not be what was best.

Lambiotte was genuinely torn. He talked to his brother about what the year without playing would be like. “He told me that if I took the right approach and used the year, it would be okay,” he said. “There are advantages to having a fifth year. You can get ahead academically, focus more on your game, and you’ve just got more time. The hard part would be not playing for a year after a year in which I hadn’t played very much.”

Lambiotte changed his mind on several occasions. He wanted to go, then he wanted to stay. He liked it at State as a student. Was transferring just for playing time a mistake? Finally, he decided to talk to Valvano about it.

Valvano hadn’t lost faith in Lambiotte. As a coach, he knew that
some players were ready as freshmen, others bloomed later. Del Negro, who had become a star late in his junior year, was a perfect example. “I think next year should be your year,” Valvano told Lambiotte. “You’ve spent the last two years learning. Next year you will have completed most of the learning process and you should really be ready.”

Valvano’s comments confused Lambiotte further. True, he could see he’d have more playing time at small forward the next year, since Bennie Bolton would be gone. But he had
had
playing time and lost it. What if that happened again?

Lambiotte decided he had to get away from State for a few days to make up his mind. He went home and sat on the beach. This was a tough time. He was, in essence, deciding whether to repudiate the most important decision of his life. He had to decide whether to go somewhere and
start all over
; new school, new teachers, new friends, new coaches, new teammates. And Lambiotte knew that transfers generally were not treated with a lot of sympathy by the public.

“It just seemed to me that whenever you hear someone talk about a guy who transferred, they never say ‘transfer,’ ” he said. “They always say, ‘He quit.’ I didn’t like the idea of being labeled a quitter.”

But at the same time, Lambiotte could hear his mother’s words in the back of his mind: “Maybe quitting is just staying in the same place and sitting.”

Lambiotte knew he didn’t want to sit. There were no guarantees at State. The extra year might help. He decided: “I’m leaving,” he told his father.

It was his father who gave Valvano the news. Valvano was disappointed; he liked Lambiotte and he honestly felt he would get to play in the future. But he understood, too. Lambiotte was not the first player to leave State because of lack of playing time. When you recruit a lot of athletes there are going to be some who don’t get to play.

One decision made, another one was necessary: where to transfer to? “It isn’t like there’s a guidebook on how to do it,” Lambiotte said. “I wasn’t even sure where to start.”

He didn’t have to start. Once the word got out that he was leaving, coaches began courting him. In some ways, it was like being recruited all over again. Lambiotte wasn’t very comfortable with that. He wanted to make a decision and get it over with. He was playing summer ball—and playing well—and that was causing a lot of action on the Lambiotte telephone. Kentucky called. So did Michigan. And Syracuse.