The Battalion
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• /laaie. Babketball 1990-91 •
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Kermit Davis Jr.: New Kid on the Block
By DOUGLAS PILS
Of The Battalion Staff
When visiting G. Rollie White this
season to watch the men’s basketball
team, remember: that’s not the wa-
terboy stalking the sidelines, scream
ing for more defense and passing —
it’s the new head coach.
With the exception of his snazzy
suit, Kermit Davis Jr., the new head
coach for Texas A&M, looks as if he
should be passing out Gatorade. But
in actuality, he’s the future of Aggie
basketball.
A&M Athletic Director John Da
vid Crow must think so — he in
vested a four-year contract into Da
vis and led the way for development
of a $35-million Special Events Cen
ter, which A&M will begin using in
1993.
Davis, 30 and a 1982 graduate of
Mississipi State, has seen more com
ings and goings than he probably
would have liked since being hired
on March 28 of this year.
To date, the Aggies have lost
seven players that were slated to be
on the team this year.
Hardin-Simmons transfer
Tommy French left for Oklahoma;
Marshall transfer Maurice Sanders
was denied admission because of
past problems; returning center and
member of the 1989-90 Southwest
Conference Newcomer team David
Harris and forward David Peterson
failed out of school this summer; in
coming freshmen Ed Wheeler, from
Seagoville, and Artie Griffin, from
San Antonio Lee, became Prop 48
casualties and Wheeler left to go to
Patis Junior College. To top off this
list, returning senior Freddie Ricks
was suspended from the team pen
ding investigation of his alleged bur-
galry of a vehicle.
So to say Davis’ transition to A&M
has been a smooth one would be er
roneous, but the fourth youngest
head coach in the NCAA knows this
year will be anything but a joyride.
“I think every night is going to be
very difficult,” Davis said. “But we’re
excited about the year and I think
our guys have approached it well.”
Davis started learning how to take
that approach and his coaching phi
losophies at a young age. His father,
Davis Sr., was a head coach for 25
years and the younger Davis started
hanging out at the gym at age three.
Davis said he knew all his life that he
wanted to follow in his father’s foot
steps.
“I was one of those guys who went
to the gym everyday and thought
that’s what I wanted to be,” he said.
“But I graduated in business just in
case it turned out that coaching
wasn’t what I wanted to do.
“However, I just kind of had it the
back of mind that’s what I wanted to
do for a long time.”
Becoming a coach was not some
thing Davis was forced into, and he
credits his father with teaching him
the ins and outs of the business.
“He never forced me into it,” Da
vis said. “He showed me the negative
things about (coaching). Not that
there’s any negative things about
coaching, but the hard things, being
away from your family and that kind
of stuff.
“He was good at showing me
Trying to revive Aggie roundball
I Z Wllm
wmmmm, ■ 11
i
MIKE C. MULVEY/The Battalion
A&M coach Kermit Davis Jr. is on a mission to breathe life into a sagging program.
"I think the thing that really attracted me to A&M was the academic
reputation. I f d never seen former students like the ones at A&M that
leave the school and have so much appreciation for it after they leave.
It's a great allegiance for the student body— it’s tight and close-knit,
even though it's 41,000 students.” „ ^ .
— Kermit Davis Jr.,
Texas A&M men’s basketball head coach
those things and letting me make my
own decision.”
After being an assistant coach at
the University of Idaho for two
years, Davis was given full command
of the Vandals in 1988. It didn’t take
long for the honors to start rolling
in.
In his two-year stint as head
coach, Davis put together consec
utive 25-6 seasons, was named the
Big-Sky Conference Coach-of-the-
Year, won two conference cham
pionships and took Idaho to consec
utive NCAA Tournament appear
ances.
Coming to A&M is a situation sim
ilar to the one Davis found himself
in when he first arrived in Moscow,
Idaho.
“Four years ago when I was an as
sistant and head coach up there,” he
said, “they’d finished last in the
league for three straight years. Then
we were 25-6 for two years. It was
just one of those fortunate deals.”
Davis said the biggest problem
was in the lack of support the team
had been getting from the student
body.
“We went to Idaho and the stu
dent body wasn’t really involved with
basketball,” Davis said. “There’s only
about 10,000 students and they
hadn’t sold very many season tickets.
I think A&M has a lot more re
sources.
“You talk about Idaho being a
smaller school in the Northwest and
A&M being a big school, big institu
tion, in the middle of three national
networks (Dallas, Houston and San
Antonio). There’s a lot of potential
with this job.”
Since being hired, Davis and his
staff have spent a lot of time going
out and drumming up support, try
ing to get people interested in the
program.
“The thing we try to do is speak at
student organizations — Rotaries,
Kiwanis, A&M Clubs, former stu
dent things, everything —just to try
to get people thinking about basket
ball again,” he said. “It’s a challenge,
but the Aggies love to go to athletic
events.”
It’s not only the challenge to reb-
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uild the program that attracted Da
vis, but also the University’s aca
demic standing and the sense of
camraderie among the student body
and former students.
“I think the thing that really at
tracted me to A&M was the aca
demic reputation,” he said. “I’d
never seen former students like the
ones at A&M that leave the school
and have so much appreciation for it
after they leave. It’s a great alle
giance for the student body — it’s
tight and close-knit, even though it’s
41,000 students.
“It’s just neat for me to be able see
that opportunity and hopefully
make something grow over the next
four or five years.”
Davis, who spent two years at
Southwest Mississippi Junior College
(39-12) before signing on at Idaho,
said getting the A&M job is the job
he was waiting for — this isn’t a step
ping stone to another job.
“I definitely think this was the job
I was looking for,” he said. “I was
fortunate that it happened to me at
an earlier age than I expected. My
wife and I both love College Station.
We just feel like it’s a heck of a place.
We’ve really enjoyed it.”
Davis brings to College Station a
philosophy based on fairness, good
attitudes and a swarming defense. A
defensive system that says offense
will come out of good defense.
“I believe in treating people
fairly,” Davis said. “But from a strat
egic standpoint I’m very demanding
defensively. I think we’re pretty de
manding on the floor and we expect
a lot out of our guys. We want guys
to be able to take constructive crit
icism to get better. Those kind of
things we put a lot of emphasis on.
“I think defensively, we really try
to spend a lot of time. I think if you
can get guys to guard defensively
then they’re pretty well disciplined,
so they’ll play disciplined offensively
as well.”
Normally, Davis said his defensive
system calls for constant pressure on
the ball, but with the depth problems
brought on the exodous of players
from the team may force him to
change that somewhat.
“We’d like to do a lot of full court
pressing, but I don’t know if we’ll do
as much this year because of our
depth,” he said. “I think we’ll try to
pressure the ball, even in our zone,
it’s really a lot of ball pressure. We’ve
go to be good defensively, and get
back defensively if we’re going to
have a chance to stay competitive.”
Being competitive is one thing the
Aggies may have problems with this
season. With only two players re
turning with an abundance of Divi
sion I experience in Brooks Thomp
son and Lynn Suber, the situation
bears a striking resemblance to when
the Southern Methodist football
team returned from its NCAA-
impsed death penalty.
“Yeah, that could pose a prob
lem,” Davis said. “There are some
others returning but not as far as
guys who’ve played a lot of minutes.
Both of those guys (Brooks and
Lynn) are 6-4, 6-2, so we’ve got to
break in a lot of new guys in certain
situations and that’s going to be dif
ficult.”
Staying competitive this year will
depend on whether or not the team
pays attention to the finer points of
the game, Davis said, and not worry
about the whole season but just take
one game at a time.
“We’ve got to be able to go and ex
ecute the details everyday,” he said.
“Because if not we have a chance to
get beat badly. If we do those little-
bitty things — then it’ll give us a
chance to be competitive night-in
and night-out and I think our guys
think that we have a good team and
our staff does to.”
Davis said he realizes this team
may be lacking some talent but he
added that he thinks the guys will
make up for that with hard-nosed
play.
“No, we don’t have as good a tal
ent or depth as lot of the teams in
our league,” he said. “But still, with
guys that are playing hard and com
peting you’ve got a chance to over
come some of that.”
One thing Kermit Davis is not
about to do is give up on this team
before the season gets started.
“Our program will have a lot
more depth from the first year to the
second year,” he said. “Our guys are
working hard and we’re not writing
this year off at all. We’re going to go
out, compete and play and as long as
those guys are working hard, good
things are going to happen.”
Sixth Man
adds new life
to old program
By DOUGLAS PILS
Of The Battalion Staff
Texas A&M’s men's basketball
coach Kermit Davis J r. is adding a
new twist to a popular Aggie tra
dition.
This year, Davis is taking a
page from the famous 12th Man
Kickoff Team's success story by
introducing his own version —the
Sixth Man.
The Sixth Man will be a non
scholarship player, who will start
each home game and play until
the opponent scores. Davis said
he came up with the idea not long
after taking over as head coach
March 28.
“1 had an idea in the off-sea
son,” Davis said. “I guess it was
the second week I was on the job
here with our staff, talking about
ways we could get the student
body involved with the basketball
program.
“It’ll compliment the student
body’s enthusiasm and concept of
the 12th Man,”
Davis is enthused about the
plan and said he wants to assure
everyone that it’s not just a gim
mick, the players making the
team will be legitimate athletes.
“In some ways we get people in
the stands to come watch the
Sixth Man,” he said. “That gets
the student body tied in. In other
ways we’ve had to find legitimate
guys that could play because of
the competition we play.
“We’re just looked for the best
available player, because they’re
going to be out there against
some big-time people. A guy who
can defend, maybe a physical
guy, just guys who can hold their
own defensively.”
In addition to playing in front
the home crowd, the members of
the Sixth Man are playing an
other integral part. With only
eight scholarship players avail
able and healthy, they’re being
used a lot more in practice.
“With Carlos Marrero out with
the knee injury and Anthony
Ware with a bruised calf, we’ve
only had eight guys,” Davis said.
“So, the Sixth Man has really
been good for us, giving us a
competiveness in practice.”
The members of the Sixth Man
are: Steve Bartholomew, a 6-8,
220 pounder from Houston; Mac
Brink, 6-4, 185 pounds from
Richardson; Greg Cook, 6-1, 170
pounds from Dallas; Chuck Hen
derson, a 6-2, 170 pounder from
Houston, who was redshirted
from last year’s squad; Brian
Linder, 6-3, 185 pounds from
College Station and David Mar
tin, 5-11, 155 pounds from Tyler,
who walked on last year and
played in 16 games.
With depth problems and the
hard, pressing defense preferred
by Davis, some of the Sixth Men
might end up with more playing
time.
“They might even be given a
chance not only to contribute at
the start of the game but also in
different parts of it,” Davis said.
See Sixth/Page 8
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