UMass man - Massachusetts star Marcus Camby - College Basketball Tournament Special - Cover Story

Marcus Camby doesn't have much room to grow. But he has.

We're not talking about inches and pounds. He's the same 6-11 he was as a senior at Hartford (Conn.) Public High, although he has gained some weight since arriving at Massachusetts in the fall of 1993.

We're talking about emotional growth, the kind needed to become the best basketball player in the nation. Many argued he was one of the top players in the land last season as a sophomore and could have cashed in by declaring for the NBA draft. But he stayed in school so his game could mature, and the result is a blossoming into adulthood.

Camby's wizened outlook will come in handy as his team begins the three-week pass-fail quiz of the NCAA Tournament. If Camby plays six consecutive games at his best -- and up to the level that earned him The Sporting News Player of the Year Award -- then the No. 2 ranked Minutemen have as good a chance as any team to win it all, including No. I Kentucky. But if Camby slips to less than his best -- as has been the case on occasion this season, especially down the stretch -- then UMass' chance of winning it all is minimal. The Minutemen, who finished the regular season 28-1, still are a quality team when Camby isn't a superstar. But there's little chance they'll advance past the Sweet 16 without Camby carrying the team.

That sounds like an inordinate amount of pressure to place on one man in a team game, which it is. But no matter what happens, the tournament only will be the second most difficult and unfair test of Camby's season.

If you remember, Camby has had to cope with mortality, which is something few 21-year-olds face. So, heck, a failed hoop exam is nothing to get worked up about. Not for someone with the matured outlook of Camby.

Sunday, January 14, UMass vs. St. Bonaventure.

The game was supposed to be an innocuous affair that would be yet another "W" on the transcript of the UMass season. Just another trip to Olean, N.Y., to kick the Bonnies, butt. This game, however, would take on a special meaning for Camby and UMass, which had sprinted out R, a 13-0 start and No. l ranking. But the game became memorable for all the wrong reasons. After pregame warmups, Camby collapsed and lay unconscious for 10 minutes.

"I never fell I was in trouble," says Camby, who was taken to Olean General Hospital and held overnight for tests with Calipari waiting vigil. "When I came to, coach was there and I asked him if I could go back in the game. I felt fine. But they kept me in the hospital, and they took tests I don't think they knew they had."

At the hospital, Calipari said he was overjoyed that doctors had told him Camby would live.

"The whole thing was really blown out of proportion," Camby says.

That was easy for him to say with a detachedness that would have made Walter Cronkite proud. After all, images of Hank Gathers, death almost six years ago, when the Loyola Marymount star suffered a fatal heart attack during a West Coast Conference Tournament game, had leaped into everyone's mind. Camby's detachment, however, served him in good stead in the aftermath of his collapse. What he saw as a puzzling health problem, others concluded was the begin of a soap opera. But he didn't let it bother him.

Well before Camby emerged from a four-day stay in the UMass Medical Center, press and fan queries about substance abuse had begun, despite a negative drug test. After Len Bias and the medical muddle surrounding the death of Reggie Lewis, this was a sad inevitability.

"I know this is because people said that case (Lewis, death) was drug-related," Camby told the Boston Herald before he returned to action January 27 against St. Bonaventure. "But I know my own is not, so I don't pay it any mind."

Camby might not have been frightened by his collapse, but his teammates, coach and those associated with Massachusetts were.

Five days before Camby's ordeal, UMass swimmer Greg Menton died of an undetected heart defect during a meet vs. Dartmouth.

The cause of Camby's collapse is unknown. The battery of tests drove Camby batty and essentially concluded that he was a positive-negative. The problem wasn't his heart, and it wasn't neurological.

Camby felt fine. If doctors can't tell you why you shouldn't be fine, maybe you are. Ever since, Camby has treated his health as a non-issue.

"I'm sure he thinks about it at times," Calipari says. The coach admits to worrying only once since Camby's return, when he heard on February 10 of the sudden death of Dayton center Chris Daniels. That was an inescapable comparison, because UMass had played Dayton on January 6.

"I learned it (Daniels, problem) was arrhythmia, which is different from Marcus," Calipari says.

Perhaps Camby's blase attitude about the Olean Episode is justified. Certainly there was no indication that his game deteriorated during the two-week layoff he incurred as a precautionary measure. The Minutemen perked along going 4-0 and retaining the nation's No. 1 ranking during his layoff. On his return against St. Bonaventure, Camby blocked nine shots in 23 minutes. He looked like a force again.

If Camby wasn't fazed by lying in a heap in St. Bonaventure's Reilly Center, we should not be surprised. This is the guy who has locked horns with Tim Duncan, Lorenzen Wright, Danya Abrams, Todd Fuller, Marc Jackson and Samaki Walker, some of the nation's biggest, baddest big men. And Camby came up bigger and badder in each encounter. There's nothing he can't do, right?

Maybe that's why Camby sounds so calm about the impending March Madness of which he'll be the focal point.

"It doesn't matter what seed we get or who we play," Camby says. "Every game will be a struggle. When the team's not going well, I've got to ask for the ball and put the game on my shoulders."

That sounds familiar. But this stirring motivational declaration was delivered in Camby's habitual infectionless voice, in muted tones and with the emotional fire of a man reciting his Saturday morning errands list.

Visit car wash. Check. Pick up dry cleaning. Check. Oh, yeah, and don't forget to be the hero in what may be the biggest sporting event in the country.

Calipari makes sure this players don't forget their ultimate goal-improving the team. He periodically asks them to turn in written statements on what they can and will do to make the Minutemen better. The last such assignment came the day after a February 28 overtime victory over St. Joseph's, which was accomplished more on luck than merit.

"Oh, I didn't do that yet." Camby says, "I better do that right now. I'll probably put down being a team leader, stepping up and making the big plays, what I've been doing since the start of the season against Kentucky."

Camby might be the first American athlete of this decade to use understatement as his primer means of communication. Rudyard Kipling only wrote a poem about how to be an adult. Camby really does treat triumph and disaster the same.

On February 17, the then undefeated and No. 1 ranked Minutemen played a road game against 10th-ranked Virginia Tech, a winner of 19 straight. Camby hit his first three shots and finished with 31 points as UMass won with almost haughty ease, 74-58.

Camby's reaction: "I think we had an average game. We all can play better."

Informed of this statement, Calipari was struck speechless. After a Ralph Kramden double take, Calipari managed to say, "Well, I hope he's right."

One week later, at home against George Washington, Camby's first two shots were returned to sender by the Colonial's 7-1, 300-pound center from Belarus, Alexander Koul. (George Washington bursts to a 29-11 lead, en route to ending UMass, 26-game winning streak, 86-76, and toppling it from the top of every poll, including The Sporting News'. "We had a chance to be something special, but if we were 12-12, it would feel the same to lose. We're just in a little slump right now, on offense and defense. I mean, eight rebounds and one block? That's not me."

Maybe the shocking George Washington loss can be explained away as the sum effect of UMass straining to maintain an undefeated season while playing a vicious schedule. The normal late-February blahs may have compounded matters and accounted for the fatigue that resulted in Camby hitting just 8-of-21 shots.

"Tired?" Camby said quickly when asked if he was worn clown. "No, I'm not tired at all." (His voice and body language conflicted with his usual calm.)

For a middle-aged reporter, it was somehow reassuring to know there was a topic that could make Camby ill at ease. He does not however, brood about his health. Camby tenses at the notion he can wear out because, a) that was the rap against him during his freshman and sophomore seasons, and b) he doesn't want anyone, especially NBA anyones, to think that his medical problem has left him damaged goods.

"I just came back and worked extra hard to prove there was nothing wrong with me, that I was the same player I was in the Kentucky game."

The Kentucky game set UMass in motion toward immortality -- an undefeated season, something that hadn't been done since Indiana in 1975-76. Tile Minutemen shocked many by defeating the Wildcats by 10 points in November. But that was a prelude of things to come, as UMass proceeded to play nine ranked teams and beat eight. But the Kentucky contest was a watershed event. That was the game the Minutemen discovered they may be special. That was the game where Camby proved he already was.

UMass has been at or near the top of the rankings so long that it has almost forgotten the preseason prognosticators had pegged it several flights from the top, including The Sporting News, which ranked UMass 15th. The Minutemen were downgraded because they had lost Lou Roe to the NBA. The backcourt of Carmelo Travieso and Edgar Padilla was an unknown quantity. And the Minutemen were just plain lousy in several preseason exhibitions.

It is Calipari's habit to schedule the most brutal December matchups he can wangle. This was a necessity when UMass was an unknown program on the make. Now Calipari plays non-conference steel-cage death matches because, well, he likes it.

"I think we play our best when we're afraid we could get blown out," Calipari says. So, for the second consecutive season, UMass opened against the preseason consensus No 1. (The Minutemen beat Arkansas in 1994-95. In 1993-94, UMass downed No. 1 North Carolina in the Minutemen's third game.)

There must be something to Calipari's theory on the motivational power of fear, because UMass beat Kentucky, 92-82. The game marked yet another Camby growth spurt, the hard passage from potential to actual star.

Camby torched the Wildcats for 32 points, 9 rebounds and 5 blocks. He was a revelation on the floor, and in his quiet way, he was one off the floor, too.

With five minutes to play, Calipari was aggressively criticizing Padilla for committing a turnover. Camby caught the coach's eye and said, "Hey, relax. we're going to win this game."

Calipari is a martinet, but not a tyrant. If his players do what he wants, he's happy to let them think for themselves. And, after all, few coaches dislike expressions of confidence from their most important players.

"I looked in his eyes, and he was right," Calipari says. "And after that, he made every big play."

And since then, holler guy or not, Camby has been the undisputed leader of the Minutemen. At its best, UMass plays beautiful team offense and savage team defense. But Calipari's team is built around and for the Camby presence.

"We feed off him," Padilla says. "And if he gets blocked or something, it has an effect."

Then again, when Camby begins the game with a few quick baskets or rejections, that has an effect, too. Whether or not Camby intimidates opposing players, he has messed with a few coaches' minds.

"That is a team that's a team." Temple Coach John Chaney says. "And it all starts with that big guy in the middle who says, `no you can't. The come down on offense, and all I can do is pull out my Bible book and say, `Please. Lord, don't let them make another basket.'"

"I don't know if I've ever seen a college player who can do the things Marcus Camby does," Virginia Tech Coach Bill Foster says.

It was Foster and Chaney's misfortune to meet UMass at or near its best. The Virginia Tech and Temple games exemplify the two sides of the Camby dilemma. If you guard him straight up, he'll hurt you. If you double-team Camby and junk up the defenses, he'll help his teammates hurt you.

In one meeting with Temple this season, Camby scored only 10 points. But his response to double-teams and collapsing zones was to move up to the high post and pass. Forwards Dana Dingle and Donta Bright (the sort of highly touted recruits Camby was not) are adept cutters and finishers, so they happily accepted his passes. Also, Temple ignored Travieso, and he hit eight 3-pointers.

"Marcus is totally selfless," Calipari says. "He's delighted to kill you with passing."

Foster's Hokies tried to stop Camby with one man. The results were predictable.

The first team to play Camby straight up was Dayton. Camby had 38. And, sadly, it was Daniels who gave perhaps the best explanation of the defects of that strategy.

"It's pretty tough," Daniels said. "I've never played against a 7-footer who could take you off the dribble from the 3-point line."

"If teams play him with one man," Calipari says, "he'll get 35 to 40 points a game. And one game, he'll get 50."

How, then, was the Minutemen's 26-game winning streak ended? Why did UMass suddenly seem so vulnerable down the stretch against teams such as Rhode Island and St. Joe's?

The answer can be found in the loss that knocked UMass out of last season's NCAA Tournament. Oddly enough, the game that highlighted Camby's vulnerabilities was the one that convinced him to give UMass the benefit of his maturing play.

The Minutemen lost to Oklahoma State in the East Regional final, and Camby was abused by 7-0, 300-pound Bryant Reeves, who bounced Camby into a 3-for-10 shooting effort.

"We usually wear people down, but they wore us down," Camby says.

Counter-intuitive as it seems, playing Camby straight-up appears to be the best option. If, that is, you have a 7-0, 300-pound center.

George Washington had such a center. And GW Coach Mike Jarvis gambled that Koul could contain Camby well enough to allow his team to exert defensive pressure on Travieso and Padilla. Simple mathematics says it takes longer to lose giving up two points at a time than three.

"You can sit Up nights trying to be a genius for a day," Jarvis says. "But if you try and trick the No. 1 team, they'll beat the hell out of you."

Koul eventually fouled out, but not before Camby shot 4-for-13 in the first half and George Washington had a 17-point lead. Travieso couldn't get open outside the 3-point line until late in the second half, when the scoreboard made the outside shot the only option.

And, like Reeves, Koul has moves to accompany his muscles. He was offensively skilled enough to occupy Camby's full attention, allowing the other Colonials to drive to the hoop without worrying about Camby lunging to block a shot.

Small wonder that Calipari recently fumed, "Basketball is all about passing and team chemistry. People don't want to see that bump-and-grind play. Naismith and others didn't create it to be that way."

That burst of preemptive bench jockeying might not be necessary. Bulky yet gifted centers in the classic mode are thin in the college ranks this season. Look at the other potential championship contenders. Who has the frontcourt power to knock Camby out of his feeding grounds?

UMass already has beaten Wake Forest's Duncan and Memphis, Wright. Among the schools it hasn't played, Georgetown, along with UCLA and Cincinnati, could provide problems reminiscent of Oklahoma State. But the college game is filled mostly with leapers and athletes, and Camby remains the leapingest athlete of all.

The other obstacle between UMass and the Final Four is Camby's shooting, which has been skittish. In a three-game, late-season stretch against Rhode Island, George Washington and St. Joe's, Camby hit only 24-of-63 shots. Consequently, the Minutemen barely beat two teams that won't make the NCAA Tournament and were thumped by one that will.

It isn't that UMass is a one-man team, a contention that annoys Camby. The Minutemen are vulnerable to a Camby downturn precisely because they've been so precisely blended into his game.

"There are good players out there who will block shots and make shots and get rebounds and numbers," Calipari says. "But only a special player makes everybody around him a better player. Marcus is a special player."

The corollary of that tribute is obvious. A player capable of making his teammates improve is also capable of dragging their performance down. Umass, balance leaves it vulnerable to slumps from any of its five starters. Like many things of beauty. this team is a delicate creation.

"When we play together. we're a powerful car," Calipari says. "When we don't, we're four tires and a steering wheel."

The UMass car depends on its motor. Because he's so determinedly low-key, Camby can be hard to read. But despite his accomplishments this season, Camby hasn't escaped one bitter irony. He is better known for his collapse than for being an All-American on a great team.

Camby turned down big money to stay in school to improve himself. He ought to be the star of NCAA propaganda films aimed at undergraduate athletes to stay in school. But that's not what people remember.

Camby's the first college player since Holy Cross, Bob Cousy to be Boston's most celebrated basketball star. Even at Celtics games, little kids wear maroon-and-white jerseys bearing Camby's No. 21. But that's not what people remember, either. And it's doubtful folks will recall he averaged 21.4 points, 8.2 rebounds and 3.9 blocks this season.

No, when others think of Marcus Camby, even the teammates and coaches who love him dearly, they cannot avoid remembering what he literally cannot, the image of Camby stretched unconscious on a floor in upstate New York.

There is nothing more Camby wants than to erase that image. The sight of him cutting down a net at the Final Four in East Rutherford, N.J., might be the only image that can.

A childish ritual seems the best possible celebration for a young man getting past such a tough part of growing.

RELATED ARTICLE: The past 15 TSN Players of the Year

Season Player, school 1981-82 Ralph Sampson, Virginia 1982-83 Michael Jordan, North Carolina 1983-84 Michael Jordan, North Carolina 1984-85 Patrick Ewing, Georgetown 1985-86 Walter Berry, St. John's 1986-87 David Robinson, Navy 1987-88 Hersey Hawkins, Bradley 1988-89 Stacey King, Oklahoma 1989-90 Dennis Scott, Georgia Tech 1990-91 Larry Johnson, UNLV 1991-92 Christian Laettner, Duke 1992-93 Calbert Cheaney, Indiana 1993-94 Glenn Robinson, Purdue 1994-95 Shawn Respert, Michigan State 1995-96 Marcus Camby, Massachusetts

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