SUMMER BASKETBALL NOTEBOOK : El Camino Real Hopes Quick Fix Will Make Up for Loss of Davis

Every time Jeff Davis, the El Camino Real High assistant basketball coach, looks down the bench during a summer league game, he gets lonely. Missing is Sean Davis, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder from last season who will attend San Jose State in the fall.

The coach and player are not related, but Jeff sounds like a member of the family when he talks about Sean’s abilities.

“We’ve never had an athlete like him,” Davis said. “He’s the best athlete since the school opened in 1969. He can throw a football 70 yards right on the button, dunk a basketball any way you want and pitch a baseball 90 miles per hour.”

Davis never played football at El Camino Real and stopped playing baseball during his sophomore year. He was ruled ineligible for participating on a Senior Little League team during the high school season, forcing El Camino Real to forfeit five West Valley League victories. Davis, who has accepted a basketball scholarship at San Jose State, also will play baseball in college.

Davis concentrated on basketball at El Camino Real and averaged 19.8 points and 13.6 rebounds a game last season. Still, even with Davis, the Conquistadores finished fifth in the Valley League at 3-9 and 8-14 overall. The team lacked the speed and backcourt to keep up with the likes of Fairfax, Cleveland and Taft.

With the 6-4 Davis and 6-6 Seth Caplan lost to graduation, El Camino Real has committed to life in the fast lane.

“We have to be a small, fast team and play that style,” Jeff Davis said. “If we play that way every day and make the mental commitment to that style . . . we still may get killed, but that’s the way we’ve got to go. If we don’t play like that in the Valley League it could get real ugly.”

To help make the adjustment to a faster pace, El Camino Real has expanded its summer league schedule, playing in three leagues. The transition has paid early dividends, including a third-place finish in last weekend’s 16-team tournament at Westmont College.

The new style appeals to Coach Mike McNulty, chiefly because the players find it appealing.

“It’s more fun for players,” he said. “Because you have to substitute more, it gets more guys into the game. They get to score more points and do more things. A kid that isn’t that great an offensive player can score a lot of points, stealing a lot of balls. It makes everybody feel part of the team.”

Playing the biggest parts so far have been 6-3 junior Brent Lofton and 6-2 senior Damon Orlando, both of whom have averaged more than 20 points a game.

Jason Steele, a 6-5 junior, and Nick Warner, a 6-4 senior, will play inside, and 5-10 senior Corey Thurman and 6-1 senior Erik Nasarenko join Orlando in the backcourt that may feature three guards at times.

Although McNulty admits that the loss of Davis will hurt, he is optimistic about his current group.

“There aren’t a whole lot of years you’re going to look down the bench and see a Sean Davis,” he said. “We’re losing our inside game and losing half our offense. But we’ve got hard workers and we’re going to improve a lot. They already surprised me a little. Summer is kind of ragtime basketball, but they’ve been a lot more organized than I expected.”

Add El Camino Real: Academics might play a big role next season for the Conquistadores, who last season lost Thurman to ineligibility. With him in the lineup, El Camino Real stayed even with Cleveland for much of one game before losing, 72-58. Without him, Cleveland rolled to huge victories, including a 94-51 win in the second round of the playoffs.

Said McNulty: “When you play the elite teams in the league, you have to have somebody athletic enough to handle the pressure. We hope he’s the guard.”

Last add El Camino Real: Although McNulty expects a small team next season, at least one player will be taller than expected. Orlando was a 5-10 guard last season but already has grown to 6-2. Orlando, who skipped a year of school, will be a 16-year-old senior next season.

“He’s 6-2 now and his doctors say he could be 6-4,” Jeff Davis said. “He could always jump. Now he can jump and go over people.”

Said McNulty: “He’s improved 50% from last season already. Being a year younger than his classmates has been hard on him. But he’s a smart kid and he’s going to be a good catch for some college that wants to put in the time with him.”

Instant impact: Greg Herrick, who has been on the job as the new Hart High coach less than two months, already has scored his first recruiting victory. Brian Jacobs, a 6-5, 245-pound offensive lineman on the football team, has joined the Hart program.

Jacobs, a Times All-Valley selection last fall who didn’t play basketball last season, joined the basketball team after one conversation with Herrick.

“After my first meeting with the players they said Jacobs might be a guy I should talk to,” he said. “We sat down and talked and I guess we hit it off. He’s been out there every day.

“He loves basketball and I think it will enhance his football ability and improve his quickness. Right now, he’s a starter for us.”

Herrick, who coached at Cleveland High before serving as an assistant at College of the Canyons the past two seasons, has instituted a quick offense and a trapping defense. Still, the Indians may resemble the Bruise Brothers under the basket. Jacobs joins a front line that includes Brian Allen (6-4, 205) and Curt Marzinzik (6-4, 205).

Herrick is after a second recruit, Casey Burrill, who played baseball and basketball as a sophomore last season. Burrill had dropped out of the basketball program to concentrate on baseball, but he reached that decision before talking to Herrick, who invoked the name of one of his former players at Cleveland.

“I coached Bret Saberhagen and you can’t get any better than that,” he said of the pitcher for the Kansas City Royals. “I talked to Casey and told him, ‘You want me to call Bret and have him tell you what basketball can do for you? How it helps your legs?’ ”

Herrick, who is awaiting Burrill’s decision, is a confident salesman when it comes to his basketball program.

“I know kids,” he said. “I know what they want to hear. What we have to sell in our program is what kids want, a positive experience.”