Terry Porter : A Small-School Star Catches Eye of Pros

When Terry Porter makes his point--and he makes it often--fans stand up and cheer and pro scouts jot down numbers in their notebooks. It’s quite a change for a player considered too small for big-time basketball just three years ago.

“I wasn’t much good in high school, so the big schools didn’t come after me,” said Porter, the star point guard for the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. “But I guess I’ve improved a lot at Point.”

The only small-college player invited to the U.S. Olympic basketball trials last summer, the 6-foot-3 Porter was once a little-known, too-little forward at Milwaukee South High School. He now is touted by National Basketball Assn. scouts for his tight defensive play, non-stop hustle and deft shooting touch.

After scoring 18.8 points a game last year, Porter is averaging 23 points this season in a disciplined system. Even more incredibly, however, Porter is shooting better than 65% from the floor, many of his shots from the 20-foot range.

“Our guys were saying, ‘Can you imagine what would happen if (Point Coach) Dick Bennett would just let him go?”’ said Christ Kalamatas, coach at Northeastern Illinois, which was drubbed by Porter’s Pointers, 89-51, Jan. 12.

Bennett’s patient system has been successful. The Pointers are ranked second in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics after losing the NAIA title game last spring. And Porter has prospered.

“Since we moved Terry to the point a couple of weeks ago, it’s made us even more patient,” Bennett said. “He doesn’t get as many scoring opportunities as he used to have, so he has to score when he does get the chance.”

“I’m learning,” Porter said. “I just want to do what’s best for the team. It’s not really a big adjustment; I just have to create more things now.”

How creative is Porter? Well, after suffering through his worst half of the year against Northeastern Illinois (1-for-6 shooting), Porter opened the second half by canning a 20-foot jumper, gliding in for a change-of-hands finger-roll and hitting two free throws after being knocked to the floor on another swooping layup attempt.

“Every now and then I can get creative,” he said. “When I get the inspiration.”

Two of his most inspired performances of the year came in losses--both on the road against good NCAA Division I teams.

In a 51-49 loss to Illinois State, an NCAA tournament team last year, Porter scored 24 points. In a 69-62 defeat at Nebraska, he scored 29.

“When you play a Division I school,” said Porter, an 88% free-throw shooter who also averages 5.4 rebounds and 3.8 assists a game, “a small-college player has to be ready to prove he belongs.”

Porter obviously belongs with the nation’s elite.

He not only made Olympic Coach Bob Knight’s list of 64 invitees, but he survived the cut to 32 despite missing two crucial scrimmages because of chicken pox.

“I didn’t think I was going to make the cut,” he said. “I figured I was only there as the NAIA representative. But Bobby Knight told me I played well enough in the first three days of the trials to get a shot at the Olympic Team.”

At the trials, Porter said, he was in awe as he tried to prove himself equal to the likes of Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing.

“I was like a kid in a candy store,” he said. “It was like, ‘Wow, that’s Jordan,’ and ‘Hey, that’s Ewing.’ These are guys I watched on TV every Saturday!

“For the first 10 minutes, I just walked around in a daze. But once the drills started, I didn’t think about who they were or where they came from.”

That’s when Jordan, who’s gone on to become an NBA rookie star, entered Porter’s picture.

“My first drill was against Jordan,” Porter said. “It was a three-on-three half-court drill. Everybody else just went to guard somebody and Michael was the only person left. I’m thinking, ‘Just what I need--my first drill and I get Michael Jordan.’ He burned me a couple of times, but I think I held my own.”