Basketball: JMU's Curtis on point as freshman (02-03-07)
Dukes guard adapted quickly to college game -- By Craig Juer (Daily Staff Writer)
HARRISONBURG — Making the transition from high school to college basketball requires an adjustment on the part of any freshman.
It's an easy path for some, who play limited minutes and watch established seniors while learning the coach's offense and building their bodies to be able to handle the college game. For Pierre Curtis, a rail-thin shooting guard who's suddenly running the point at James Madison and leading the team in minutes, it's a giant undertaking.
Curtis didn't like his options as the runner-up for Colorado's Mr. Basketball award out of Denver East High School, so he decided to go the prep school route to improve his scholarship stock. His AAU coach knew of Charis Prep in Goldsboro, N.C., and recruiters at Colorado State suggested he spend a year there, which is where he found himself within the range of James Madison's recruiting net.
Assistant coach John Babul, in the area to recruit a player at a different high school, got wind of a pair of guards at the small Christian school.
"He went to go watch [Curtis and UNC-Wilmington's Josh Sheets] and came away from that practice thinking that Pierre could really be a good CAA two-guard," head coach Dean Keener said earlier this week. "That's how it started. We didn't know about him in high school in Denver."
Averaging 22 points a game for Charis, which finished 26-11, Curtis found himself getting attention from CSU, Southern Methodist, Loyola of Maryland and JMU. The Dukes were in need of a guard and saw Curtis as a potential two-position player.
"We were searching for a guard," Keener said. "And we definitely needed somebody who could break down the defense, knowing what our roster was and what it would be. He certainly fit the bill."
Curtis had run the point at Denver East, averaging 21 points and six assists in his final season. At Charis, he played most of the season at shooting guard.
"I've always been told I'm more of a combo [guard], and actually toward the end of prep school I got switched to point guard because our point guard got sick," he said. "Maybe [JMU] just felt I was quick with the ball and could handle it and could penetrate and dish and stuff like that. Maybe they thought I could play a little bit of both."
In other words, neither Keener nor Curtis knew how he would be used at JMU but each liked what they saw in the other. For Curtis, Keener's blunt honesty and the lure of playing in the CAA were what separated JMU from other schools.
"[Keener] was real up-front with me about everything — the whole situation and things that happened in the past [including JMU's 5-23 record last season]," Curtis said. "[The CAA] was a very competitive conference, with the Hofstras and obviously George Mason last year. It was a pretty good conference, and that's where I wanted to play."
Sophomores Colbey Santos, who now starts at shooting guard, and Lewis Lampley, who has since left JMU, were originally Keener's candidates to run the point after the departure of Jomo Belfor. By early November, Curtis was making his case.
"He just picked up the system, and while, like any freshman, he certainly had things to work on, you knew that he had a real command at the point guard and just being on the court," Keener said. "He had a real maturity about him that some freshmen don't have right away, and I think being away from home for a year certainly helped that."
Curtis was thrust into the lineup right away, matching up against Wake Forest's standout freshman guard, Ishmael Smith, in the Dukes' 91-82 loss in Winston-Salem on Nov. 11. Curtis scored 13 points and handed out six assists, and hasn't missed a start yet.
Entering today's game at Delaware, he's averaging 11.9 points per game — good for second on the team — along with 3.8 assists in a team-high 35.4 minutes. Considering his go-to move is to drive into the defense, hurl himself at post defenders and launch a floater toward the rim, that last statistic is particularly impressive.
"It says an awful lot that he's been able to battle through the first two-thirds of the season here, especially for being slight of frame," Keener said of his 6-foot-3, 165-pound guard. "It's not something that we would like to have — you'd rather have him maybe in the high-20s for minutes — but basically out of necessity that's what we're having him do. But credit him for being physically and mentally tough enough."
Curtis said the minutes are taxing.
"It's tougher than playing 32 minutes of high school basketball, I'll tell you that," he said. "I might ask [sophomore forward Juwann James] or Colbey or [sophomore Joe] Posey, 'Yo, last year, did you feel like this?' And they'll be like, 'Yeah. You just got to get through it.'
"After the games, and the day after the games, I'll have some aches and pains, but I'll just go to the training room, get some ice and just keep going. I might just be a freshman, but I think any college player who plays a lot of minutes goes through aches and pains. It comes with the territory."
Although the bruises, the schoolwork and playing without his mother in the crowd are tough on Curtis, when the 6-16 Dukes start winning, everything will be worth it, he said.
"It's fun — I mean it's college basketball," he said. "Obviously I wish we were winning more, but I've just got to be patient and it will come."
