Georgetown’s Mutombo Is Living Up to 7-2 Billing

After watching his team get swamped by Georgetown in January, Boston College Coach Jim O’Brien made an assessment and a prediction about Dikembe Mutombo that have proven prescient--alarmingly so for Georgetown’s opponents.

“I think they are every bit as good as any team they’ve ever had, and the big reason is they’re playing both of the big kids together. Mutombo does so much more for them around the basket than (John) Turner did. With him and (Alonzo) Mourning in there together, it just creates major, major problems around the basket.

“If you take those two guys, put them on our team and keep the rest of the players the same, you’ve got a different game. I am particularly impressed with the way Mutombo has developed. I think he’s going to be a very good offensive player before the tournament starts.”

Mutombo, who was a player but not always a force for the Hoyas during their first 13 Big East games, has come alive in their last three.

In those first 13 games, the 7-foot-2 junior center from Kinshasa, Zaire, averaged 8 points, 9.5 rebounds, 4 blocked shots and 24.2 minutes per game. He shot 66.1% from the field and 51.2% from the free-throw line.

In the last three he has averaged 18.7 points, 14.7 rebounds, 5.7 blocks and 34 minutes. He has shot 74.1% from the field and 69.6% from the line.

“Dikembe has stepped his game up to another level,” Georgetown senior guard Mark Tillmon said.

Last Sunday against Syracuse, Mutombo scored 19 points, grabbed 12 rebounds, blocked 5 shots and played 44 of 45 minutes. During one sequence, Big East player of the year Derrick Coleman found himself face-to-face with Mutombo. Coleman, after working hard to free himself, tried a jump shot. Mutombo blocked it right back at Coleman, who immediately shot again. Mutombo blocked that one too.

Later Mutombo fired a hook shot that didn’t gracefully loop into the basket. It went in on a line. A downward line.

“It seems like he’s come such a long way since we played them last,” said Syracuse center LeRon Ellis, whose first encounter with Mutombo was Jan. 27. “Last time he was kind of just standing there. He was pretty dominating this time. I don’t know what kind of fire got into him, but . . . “

“I’ve got my confidence now,” Mutombo said. “I think I have learned American basketball now. I think I have all the skills. But during the beginning of the season, sometimes I was scared to do some stuff that might cause me a turnover so Coach (John) Thompson could put me out of the game. Coach doesn’t like a person who causes that many turnovers. Now I am sure of what I am doing.”

He also has worked on his mental preparation before games.

“I’m thinking more about my games the day before the games,” he said. “I try to get by myself somewhere, sit down and think about my game.”

It isn’t always easy. So many thoughts fill his inquisitive mind. He spent last summer working as an intern for Rep. Robert Matsui, D-Calif., and “was always asking questions and having people explain things to him,” said Deborah Cooke, Matsui’s legislative correspondent. “He expressed a lot of interest in what was going on in Congress and in the world at large.”

And he didn’t do this while making photocopies and coffee. Cooke said he attended committee hearings and submitted written summaries. He also wrote response letters to constituents.

“Dikembe is an extremely well-balanced person,” Thompson said. “He has the whole package. He is a person who has his values in place. He is a person who is very intelligent, and he is extremely academically motivated. And he is a person who is interested in the world, not just basketball. He doesn’t think basketball is the world.”

Of his internship, Mutombo said: “It was a great experience for my life to be able to work with some of the congressmen from America. At home, I couldn’t work with a congressman. And I think it helped me with my studies because I’m doing political science.”

Of his seriousness toward his education, he said: “Georgetown is one of the greatest schools in America and with the education we are getting, if you don’t want to improve, you must be lazy. I want to improve myself. I want to prove to people that I’m an intelligent young man.”

He already has proven he is a personable young man -- engaging and possessing a wonderful sense of humor. During a news conference the day before one of Georgetown’s NCAA tournament games last year, a reporter asked Mutombo a question and without hesitating, he gave an extended response, in French -- his native language and one of five he speaks fluently. When the reporter inquired as to whether Mutombo could please repeat himself in English, Mutombo never missed a beat.

“What?” he asked in mock disbelief, “You mean you don’t understand?”

Thompson, seated next to Mutombo on the dais, practically fell out of his chair.

“You can ask all the Georgetown students,” Mutombo said. “I like everybody. On my way to class, I can say a thousand ‘How are you doings?’ to people.”

It was that way in Matsui’s office, where Cooke said Mutombo was known as Deke. “At first some of the people in the office had trouble pronouncing his name,” Cooke said, “So he said, ‘Just call me Deke.’ ”

Thompson said Mutombo’s personality has given him a lift. “Dikembe is a refreshing person to work with,” he said earlier this season. “He’s like a filling station for a coach. I can go in and get new energy from him. I enjoy him.

“I think that’s a part kids don’t understand. They come to receive, but they don’t realize that they also give. Dikembe is that way. You can get angry at him and he understands that you’re not trying to personally attack him. He says a lot of things when I’m angry that will make me break into a smile. And at this age, you need that filling station.”

Thompson seems to take particular delight in watching Mutombo progress--even as he rides him hard in practice.

“I’ve been tough on Dikembe because I think he has the ability to play,” Thompson said. “A lot of his thing is the little learning things, like supporting on defense. Those are the things that you guys, when you were kids, learned on the playground. He hasn’t learned those things because he hasn’t been through that. But he plays hard. And he responds extremely well to challenges.”

Like Thompson’s recent claim that he motivated Mutombo by putting a plane ticket to Zaire on Mutombo’s locker.

“I don’t know about this ticket,” Mutombo said with a laugh. “But Coach has been telling me since I was a freshman, ‘If you don’t play, I’m going to send you back home to your father.’ He and my father have a good relationship. I think my father told him to put much pressure on me to get a good education and be a good basketball player.”

On the basketball side, Thompson has done such things as provide Mutombo with a videotape of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shooting hook shots (“Coach told me if I get this shot, I’ll be great”) and a conversation this past summer with his former Boston Celtics teammate, Bill Russell.

Russell and Mutombo discussed shot blocking and something else--jewelry.

“He’s the guy who has 11 rings and 10 fingers,” Mutombo said. “He’s asking God if God can give him another finger to put this ring on because he always has to leave one at home.”