Fryer Is a Shooting Star Trying to Be Seen : Basketball: Former Loyola Marymount guard is back home trying to impress the NBA scouts at rookie camp.

Jeff Fryer is buzzing through town again this week.

But this time around he’s pulling back the throttle so everyone can take a good look.

Fryer, the former Corona del Mar High School standout who was Coach Paul Westhead’s “hired gun” at Loyola Marymount the past four years, is back at Loyola’s Gersten Pavilion this week playing for the Houston Rockets in the Summer Pro League.

He’s one of hundreds of free agents--former college standouts and drifters from the fringes of professional basketball--trying to impress the scouts and coaches who have gathered at Loyola.

Fryer hopes to land a spot on Houston’s roster.

He averaged 22.7 points per game at Loyola last season and set an NCAA record with 363 career three-pointers. He was one of 13 players invited by Houston to play in the summer league.

If the Rockets and Coach Don Chaney are impressed, Fryer could find himself with an invitation to the team’s veteran camp next month.

“It’s definitely a new environment,” Fryer said. “But I feel I’m competitive at this level, and hopefully I can earn a spot.”

Most former college players have to shift into a faster gear when they come into the Summer Pro League. But in order to catch on with the Rockets, Fryer is trying to back down from Westhead’s version of the game--in which the coach was upset when Fryer didn’t shoot the ball.

“I’m actually having to slow my game down,” Fryer said. “I can’t shoot it every time I get my hands on it. I’ve got to feed it in to the big guys more often and be a little selective.”

He has adjusted quickly. With the Rockets, Fryer is running the same lanes--with the guards often trailing the fastbreak--as he did at Loyola.

But he’s learning that he has to do more to play in the NBA--like guarding bigger, quicker players.

“It’s a lot more physical,” Fryer said. “I’m having to play defense harder. At Loyola, our defense was real helter-skelter with all our shooting and driving. Here, all these guys were college all-stars, and they’re tougher to guard.”

Bo Kimble, Fryer’s teammate at Loyola, was the eighth pick in this year’s draft when the Clippers selected him. Fryer was not drafted, but that doesn’t mean he lacks pro qualities.

Fryer has a special kind of toughness. He showed it this spring in the way he and Loyola’s players weathered the death of teammate Hank Gathers and then became the nation’s darlings in the NCAA tournament.

Fryer set a tournament record against Michigan in a second-round game with 11 three-pointers in 15 attempts. He burned the Wolverines with 41 points--several of them from well beyond the pro three-point stripe, and many times shooting without a teammate or an opponent anywhere near the basket.

And he’s up to it again.

Last Sunday, in Houston’s 128-112 summer league victory over the Boston Celtics, Fryer connected three times from three-point range.

The first came from a yard past the top of the stripe. The second time, Fryer got loose off a screen and unloaded from the wing over Mark Stephenson, the 10th-leading scorer (27.2 ppg) in the nation last season at Duquesne.

He capped it off by hitting a three-pointer over former UC Santa Barbara star Carrick DeHart.

In all, Fryer scored 12 points in 18 minutes.

“There are a lot of guys who need playing time here, so I’m just trying to make the most of my opportunities,” Fryer said. “I know I’m going to get the ball, and when I do, I’ve got to do what I do best.”

If Fryer winds up on an NBA roster, it will be because that team is in need of a raw shooter.

Don DeJardin, Fryer’s Pasadena-based agent, has arranged three rookie camps for his client. Fryer was in the Phoenix Suns’ camp two weeks ago, but he and the team agreed to a mutual release so that Fryer could keep his commitment to the Rockets.

He also has tentative arrangements to join the Celtics’ camp from Aug. 15-17. Things also might still work out with the Suns.

One key to Fryer’s fate may be held by Dave Jamerson, the Ohio University guard who set the NCAA record for three-pointers in a game this season with 13 but has yet to sign a contract with Houston.

Fryer and Jamerson--a first-round draft selection--are similar players. At 6-foot-5, Jamerson has a three-inch height edge on Fryer, but Fryer is a step quicker.

“I guess we’d go one-on-one if I get invited to veteran camp,” said Fryer.