ATHLETE OF THE WEEK : Notre Dame’s Hicks Punctuates Return From Injury With an Exclamation Point

How come you haven’t dunked yet?

Ken Hicks was beginning to hear it in his sleep.

“Everybody at school was talking about it,” said Hicks, a senior guard for Notre Dame High. “ ‘How come you haven’t dunked yet?’ ”

Hicks, who stands 6 feet, 4 inches, admittedly had gone too long without experiencing the authoritative act of a running, one-handed-stand-back-buddy-this-one’s-going-down-your-throat stufferoo--the way he did so often last season.

“It’s almost like an exclamation point,” Hicks said of a properly executed dunk. “Once you’re in the air, you know it’s going down. And once it’s going down you get the feeling of. . . Yes!

Hicks scored a career-high 35 points against Bell-Jeff on Saturday in an 87-71 win that gave the Knights sole possession of first place in the San Fernando Valley League. Entering the game, however, Hicks, dunkless this season, had to be wondering how long classmates would continue to press him off the court.

How come you haven’t dunked yet?

“I said, ‘I haven’t had the chance to dunk,’ ” Hicks said.

The answer was painfully simple for Hicks, who simply had been in too much pain to stuff, let alone shoot, jump or run.

Hicks, signed, sealed and soon to be stuffing the ball for Stanford, had sat out most of the nonleague season because of a severely sprained right foot. In early December, a St. Monica player landed hard on Hicks, knocking him out of the lineup for 3 weeks.

“It was on the ball of my foot and the big toe,” Hicks said. “A real bad sprain. It hurt so bad for about two weeks. I could barely run. I could not jump at all. They put me in a half cast.”

Without Hicks, the Knights seemingly were at half strength. To compound matters, forward Errol Small went out with a shoulder injury. Brian Jones, Hicks’ backcourt buddy, responded by scoring 26 points a game, but Notre Dame entered league play with a 6-8 record.

“It really changed the whole dynamics of the team,” Coach Mick Cady said of Hicks’ absence. “We couldn’t pressure as much, for one thing. We had practiced since last year playing an up-tempo game, but we were missing 30 points a game.”

Said Hicks: “It was awful, sitting and watching all the games. Especially since we were having trouble. Me and Errol were saying, ‘If we could be in there, we wouldn’t be losing.’ ”

Notre Dame lost to Loyola 3 times and to St. Monica, Pasadena and St. Paul before Hicks returned to the lineup 2 days after Christmas.

Hicks wasted little time getting his shooting eye back. Entering the Bell-Jeff game, he was averaging 19 points in 7 games. With first place at stake, he was determined to have a big game.

“I wanted to score off the bat,” he said. “I wanted to get my confidence up.”

The confidence-builder took 5 seconds. Hicks buried a 3-point shot after grabbing the opening tip-off. By halftime, he had scored 20 points, including 12 via the 3-point shot.

After 3 quarters, Hicks had 25 and 5 3-point baskets. Late in the fourth quarter, Notre Dame was enjoying a 13-point lead and Hicks was enjoying himself.

But there was one piece of unfinished business.

How come you haven’t dunked yet?

“For some reason, I wasn’t thinking about it in this game,” Hicks said. “In other games, I was thinking, ‘Gotta get a dunk. Gotta get a dunk.’ ”

Everyone got their wish with 2:15 to play.

Jones dribbled away on a fast break. Hicks gave chase, licking his chops like like a pit bull after a mail truck.

Jones down the lane....

“First I didn’t think Brian was going to pass it back,” Hicks said.

Jones with the bounce pass....

“Then I thought, ‘There it is. . . .’ ”

Hicks to the hoop ... salaamm dunk!