April 16, 2006
INDIANAPOLIS STAR INDIANA MR. BASKETBALL: GREG ODEN
Still rising
Greg Oden set a towering example of how hard work can build on prodigious talent. His work continues.
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Greg Oden hated hearing his alarm clock. Four days a week, he would go to Lawrence North High School in the wee hours of the morning for workouts with some of his teammates.
king of the state: Greg Oden's credentials as Mr. Basketball include three Class 4A state titles and numerous national Player of the Year honors. - Sam Riche / The Star
Sme days, it was free throw shooting. Some days, footwork. Each day, a rigorous routine.
He wasn't looking at his next game or next season; he was driving toward what he wants out of himself as a basketball player.
"One of my goals is, I want to be good in the NBA," the 7-foot center said. "I want to be one of those guys that you've got to worry about, that fans want to go see in the NBA.
"You have to work at it to be one of those guys. When I see myself, I want to be there, so I figure I need to put in the work."
His high school career shows he's on the way.
Oden was an overwhelming choice as The Indianapolis Star's 2006 Indiana Mr. Basketball, receiving 1771/2 of 194 votes cast -- 91.5 percent -- from coaches and media statewide.
Since voting records of Mr. Basketball were first released in 1988, only Damon Bailey in 1990 received a higher percentage -- 95.3. No other winner exceeded 70 percent. More often than not, the winner received fewer than half the votes.
Oden's runaway victory is hardly a surprise. He has won virtually every national award, including back-to-back Gatorade Player of the Year, a feat duplicated by only LeBron James. A four-year starter, Oden led Lawrence North to three consecutive Class 4A state titles and a 103-7 overall record, including 24-1 in the postseason. He never lost a conference game. He never lost at home.
Many believe if Mr. Basketball wasn't reserved for seniors, this would be his second such honor, perhaps third.
"Anybody who doesn't recognize he's the best big man of all time in Indiana high school basketball -- and if not the most dominant, certainly the most dominant at his position -- then they're not being objective or don't know the game," said Hoosier Basketball Magazine publisher Garry Donna, who has followed the state's high school basketball scene since the 1950s.
"Greg Oden, George McGinnis and Oscar Robertson are the most dominant players I've seen. . . . There have been a lot of 6-10, 6-11 players, but there has never been one like Greg Oden. The thing that sets him apart is what sets Bailey and Robertson apart. They think the game. They know the game. They make others better."
Throughout his high school career, it seems the person least impressed with Greg Oden was Greg Oden.
In fact, his Mr. Basketball ballot would have tabbed someone else, at least for half the honor:
Mike Conley, Lawrence North's point guard.
"I really don't think about being the best player in the state, because I feel Mike Conley should have been up here with me as co-Mr. Basketball," Oden said as he stretched out on a couch at The Star after a photo shoot in the No. 1 jersey, symbolic of Mr. Basketball. "He meant so much to me and to the LN basketball team.
"He runs the team. Everything goes through him. I'm inside. I get rebounds and dunks. But Mike, he runs it. He does everything that needs to be done."
Notable Nos. 2
Conley finished second in the voting with 71/2 votes, 170 behind his best friend. Others receiving votes were Andrean's Luke Harangody with two, and four players with one: Tri-Central's Grayson Flittner, Center Grove's Todd Price, Forest Park's Brandon Hopf and Evansville Mater Dei's Kelly Muensterman.
Certainly, an argument could be made that Conley would have won the award if not for a once-in-a-generation player like Oden. Conley is one of the top-ranked point guards in the nation, and, other than Oden, the highest ranked Indiana senior nationally at any position.
His consolation prize is joining a distinguished list of second-place finishers.
Eric Montross, a 7-foot center who led Lawrence North to the 1989 state championship as a junior, was in perhaps the most parallel position. Montross was in the same class as Bailey, who had been pegged for stardom since Indiana coach Bob Knight lauded him as an eighth-grader.
Bailey won Mr. Basketball in a landslide, yet Montross went on to the better basketball career, winning an NCAA title at North Carolina and playing eight years in the NBA.
Though college or pro potential don't factor in the voting, it's nevertheless notable that several second-place finishers had more notable careers than did the winners, including Shawn Kemp (who lost to Woody Austin in 1988), Bonzi Wells (Bryce Drew, 1994) and Zach Randolph (Jared Jeffries, 2000). Last year's third-place finisher, Carmel's Josh McRoberts, started at Duke as a freshman and may enter the NBA draft this summer; last year's winner, Washington's Luke Zeller, averaged 3.4 points for Notre Dame.
Some Nos. 2 weren't happy about it, notably Wells and Alan Henderson, who lost to Glenn Robinson in 1991.
Scott Skiles, who lost to Roger Harden in 1982, starred at Michigan State and played 10 years in the NBA, for which he still holds the single-game assist record of 30. He's now in his seventh season as an NBA head coach.
"There are a lot of guys down the (Mr. Basketball) list that didn't even finish second who had good careers," Skiles said before a recent Chicago Bulls game. "It's just a vote that happens at the time and it could be right or wrong."
Larry Bird carried Indiana State to the 1979 NCAA title game and returned the Boston Celtics to glory. Clyde Lovellette led the nation in scoring in taking Kansas to the 1952 NCAA championship and later won three NBA titles. Both also won Olympic gold medals and are in the Naismith Hall of Fame -- but neither won Mr. Basketball.
Lovellette, a 6-9 center for Terre Haute Garfield, said he wasn't named all-state as a senior in 1948 because a player's team needed to make it to the 16-team semistate round, and Garfield didn't. He made the All-Star team, as did Bird in 1974.
For Lovellette, 76, a city councilman in Munising, Mich., there is no bitterness that Lafayette Jeff's Bob Masters was Mr. Basketball.
"To be picked No. 2 for the state of Indiana, that was a thrill and an honor," Lovellette said.
Development
This year, there was little doubt. In leading Lawrence North to a 29-0 record, Oden completed a journey that saw him mature from a slender, 6-11 freshman to a 260-pound, muscled senior who evoked legendary names like Bill Russell, Lew Alcindor and Shaquille O'Neal.
He'll head off to Ohio State in what could be his final season with Conley as his point guard. The two have played together essentially year-round since sixth grade, a total estimated at 500 games.
In the pros, Oden will have to adjust to a new guard passing it in to the post. He'll have to acclimate himself to other changes, too, including the jet-setting lifestyle of a millionaire athlete with demands at every turn.
One thing's for sure: The extra workouts will continue.
"All the time in the gym is just to improve my game," said Oden, who had 1,873 points, 1,058 rebounds and 341 blocked shots in high school. "My physical ability gets me by in the post because in the post you have to be strong. In the years to come is when I'm going to develop that offensive mind, the smoothness in the paint, the jump shot.
"I don't think I'm there yet, but I'll be in the gym, working, and that stuff will come."
Oden didn't begin playing organized basketball seriously until fifth grade. He says he was "tall and goofy" for a while and his first basket was in the wrong goal.
"I think kids that are driven -- he obviously is driven -- started out a little slower," said Jack Keefer, who just completed his 30th season coaching at Lawrence North. "I've had great players that started out very fast or matured quicker than other kids and just dominated because they could go around everybody or jump higher.
"Their incentive is not that great because they've been the best there is in their world. Greg started out slower. He knows what it's like not to be as good as he is now. I think those guys develop a work ethic they never lose."
The alarm going off now is for the rest of the basketball world, as Greg Oden steps from high school to college and soon the NBA.
Call Star reporter Jeff Rabjohns at (317) 444-6183.
Copyright 2006 IndyStar.com. All rights reserved
Re: McD's game tonight
Oden can dunk the ball from just about the FT line, I have never seen a 7'1 guy do that.
