Payton’s Place: Best in the Country?

Gary Payton calls himself the best guard in college basketball. His coach says that’s an understatement.

“He’s the best player in the country, period,” Jim Anderson said.

While others are getting more attention, Payton is accumulating a set of statistics that are unmatched among backcourt players in the NCAA’s Division I.

Going in to this week’s games, the 6-foot-4 senior was 10th nationally in scoring (27.3 points per game), third in assists (9.4) and fourth in steals (3.6), leading Oregon State to the No. 18 spot in the national rankings.

If he continues at his current pace, he’ll become college basketball’s all-time assist leader.

Payton figures the statistics show he’s the best at his position.

“I think I should be ranked number one because I do a lot of things,” he said. “You know Rumeal Robinson and Chris Jackson, all those people, are great players. Rumeal is a scorer and Chris is a scorer, too. But they don’t do the things I do.”

Jerry West, the Los Angeles’ Lakers’ general manager and someone who knows a great guard when he sees one, thinks Payton is “right up at the head of the class” among college guards.

“The thing I like,” West said, “is that late in the game he’s not just a good player, he’s a great player.”

There have been plenty of examples of that this season as Oregon State came from behind to win again and again.

Against Louisiana Tech in the semifinals of the Far West Classic, he scored eight points and had an assist in the final 2:10 as the Beavers overcame an eight-point deficit to win 82-81. His four-foot jumper with nine seconds to play was the game winner.

Against Oregon in the finals of the same tournament, he hit two free throws with six seconds to go to preserve a 71-68 win.

At Stanford, he capped a 36-point performance with four in overtime as Oregon State won 77-76. Two days later at California, his team trailed 45-35 with 12 1/2 minutes to go. But Payton scored 11 points and had three assists, two of them to set up three-pointers, as the Beavers rallied to win 64-58.

And last weekend at Oregon, Payton scored 23 of his 30 points in the second half, including 10 of the Beavers’ last 12, as Oregon State came from eight points behind to win 69-67.

“When it’s the second half and we’re still down seven or eight and it’s getting down to the 10-minute range, that’s when I feel I’ve got to start doing more,” Payton said.

“I start going one-on-one and I start getting big buckets and that just motivates everybody else,” he said.

Anderson said he can tell when his star is about to take charge.

“Once he gets on a roll, everybody sees it,” Anderson said. “Players give him the ball. He works hard to get open. He just knows it’s going to happen.”

“I think he’s fearless,” Anderson said. “Nothing seems to daunt him, no matter the place or the player or the game or the situation. It seems like he loves those kinds of challenges.”

Throughout his career at Oregon State, Payton has been known as a tenacious defender and terrific passer. His scoring, though, has been inconsistent. That changed this season when Anderson, who has been an assistant at Oregon State for 27 years, took over from venerable Ralph Miller.

Anderson loosened the reins and let Payton take control of the team. He’s responded with some huge scoring games, including a 39-point performance at Tennessee and a 48-point effort, tying a school record, against Loyola Marymount.

“The thing that has made him a better player is we’re giving him the ball more and giving him more freedom to exploit his abilities,” Anderson said.

Anderson and Payton have developed a close relationship since the days the coach recruited him at Skyline High in Oakland. A lot of schools backed off, Anderson said, because Payton’s grades weren’t good, especially in his early prep years, and there was concern about his attitude.

But Payton has toned down his sometimes arrogant on-court manner and generally lets his basketball do the talking.

“Coach Anderson caused that maturity,” Payton said. “He says I grew up a lot. He’s been getting after me for four years. I know that I can play basketball. Everybody knows that I can play basketball, so all the extra stuff, all that’s doing is making everything flare up some more. What he tells me is ‘You know you can play basketball, you don’t need all the extra stuff.”’

Payton was headed for St. John’s, but the Redmen backed away from him at the last minute, and he opted for Oregon State. Now he’s 228 points away from becoming the school’s all-time leading scorer. He already is the team’s career leader in steals and tops the Pac-10 all-time assist list.

Payton was tempted to skip his senior year, but said he returned because his mother wanted him to finish his degree, because Miller told him he’d get a better NBA deal if he completed his senior season, and because he promised Anderson he’d play four years for him.

“I see him as a father to me,” Payton said of his coach. “We’re really close. He talks to me about anything. Whatever’s going on, I can talk to him about it.”

West says Payton is a sure bet to be a high draft choice. Whether he is the first guard selected will depend on his play in post-season and in all-star games.

“If he keeps maturing, he’ll be a terrific player” in the NBA, West said.

Anderson said Payton’s abilities are particularly suited to the pro version of the game.

“I personally feel he’ll be a better pro than he is a college player,” Anderson said. “I think he’s going to be better where you have more of an emphasis on open-court basketball.

“In a half-court defense or a half-court offense, I think he’ll have some rivals, but when it comes to the open court, from one end to the other, I don’t know if there’s a player around that’s better, and that includes the pros, too.”

Payton is closing in on the NCAA career assist record of 960 held by Sherman Douglas of Syracuse. He needs to average 8.8 per game this season to break it.

“I think about it every day,” he said. “I’ve only got 126 to go. I know I can do it. I know that if I get the ball to my big man and my shooters, they’re going to get it for me.”

If it means fewer points, he said, he doesn’t care.

“I think the assist is more valuable to me than a score,” he said.

Spoken like a true point guard.