In retrospect: Jason Terry

[hds428]

Inside College Basketball

Player of the Year

Sports Illustrated, March 8, 1999

by Grant Wahl

Early in his freshman season Arizona point guard Jason Terry paid a visit to a local Tucson

Tattoo parlor. For half an hour he flipped through page after page of the usual designs - hearts,

Crosses, roses - yawn - until his eyes fixed on the cartoon superhero Underdog. Perfect. "I wanted the tattoo to mean something,” says Terry, showing off his Underdogged left deltoid, “And that’s how I feel every time I step on the court.”

Before we explain why Terry, now a senior, has become the biggest superhero in college basketball, know this: He didn’t start last year, and this year he wasn’t even a third-team preseason All American pick. There’s more to his rise to prominence than his stats, too, although Terry was leading the Pac-10 in points (22.2ppg) and assists (5.6) through Sunday while almost single handedly leading the No. 13 Wildcats to a 20 – 6 record.

The primary reason that Terry is SI’s choice for player of the year is: No other player in the country is as crucial to his team’s success. After backing up the departed Mike Bibby and Miles Simon for the past two years, Terry heads a starting lineup that includes three freshmen and senior A.J. Bramlett, a serviceable but hardly dominating center. Five of the Wildcats’ top nine players are freshmen. “If Jason wasn’t here, we’d be 10-14,” says coach Lute Olsen. “Given that he has so many inexperienced players around him, it’s the best job I’ve ever had a point guard do in my 26 years in Division I.” Keep in mind that Olson’s alumni at the point include Bibby, Steve Kerr, Khalid Reeves, and Damon Stoudamire.

Among the other top candidates, Connecticut’s Richard Hamilton proved not to be so indispensable; the Huskies won at Stanford without him. The same can be said of Duke’s Elton Brand and Trajan Langdon; remove either of them from the lineup and the Blue Devils would still be a top 5 team. Terry’s closest rival is probably Utah point guard Andre Miller, who has also carried a rebuilding team to surprising heights, but Terry has better numbers than Miller (who averaged 16 point and 5.8 assists in the regular season) and plays in a far tougher conference. Besides, who would you want to take your last shot? Terry has given Arizona the tie or the lead in the last ten seconds three times this season.

Terry used to be known for his appearance. With his hangdog shorts and knee-high, four ply tube socks, he shows less leg than an Amish grandmother. (Terry even slept in the getup, shoes and all, the night before the last four games of Arizona’s 1997 national championship run). But this year he has demonstrated a game to match his fashion sense, having unveiled a lethal long-range jumper to go with his hyper-quick penetration moves. “Anyone who tells you he could have foreseen Jason scoring this many points would be lying,” says Ron Drayton, Terry’s head coach at Seattle’s Franklin high, where Terry won two state titles, but never averaged more than 17 ppg.

Terry says that as the season has wound down, he has kept track of Miller’s exploits on the tube. And on the wall next to Terry’s bed is a newspaper article with Miller’s picture and the headline UTAH RUNS OVER ARIZONA, a reminder of the Utes’ upset of the Wildcats in last year’s West Regional Final. “It’s been up there since three days after the game” Terry says.

In lieu of a rematch on the floor, Terry has made do with a Sony Playstation, to which he devotes at least 40 hours a week playing video games, including a college basketball game that features a pixel version of him starring for Arizona. “They made me real good on that game,” he says “I’ve got some moves and a nice little jump shot.” The game, of course, was made before this season, meaning one thing: It’s designers were the only ones who didn’t underestimate the player of the year.

[jaywalker72]

Thanks hds, for reproducing this article....

[hds428]

Just wanted to bump this thread in lieu of jaywalker's JT article. If you did'nt get a chance the first time around, I hope you took a minute to read this.