NCAA Investigation Pushes Owens Even Closer to the NBA

Whatever doubt there was has just about evaporated by now, reduced by the events of this winter to a small puddle of indecision surrounded by a continent of certainty. Since October, Billy Owens’ companions have been swarming double-teams, zone defenses packed in like some ongoing taunt, elbows to the kidneys, snowballs to the car (uh-huh) ... all of which had pushed him toward the NBA, but none of which had been enough to guarantee his departure.

Now this. This scandal that promises to complicate Syracuse basketball beyond the measures of simple wins and losses for the near future. Well, this is about enough. And of all who might be touched by the resolution of the in-house and likely NCAA investigation of Syracuse’s basketball program, Owens is the one who came here with an ironclad escape clause.

(Owens was one of seven Syracuse players briefly suspended on Feb. 9 as a result of the school’s investigation. The violation involving Owens reportedly was that he illegally played in a pick-up game.)

The school, most assuredly, will flounder for its dignity in the coming months (years?). Its supporters will cheer embarrassedly like people who read the National Enquirer in the grocery checkout line, compelled to take pleasure from something they know is transparent. The players will split themselves between transfers and martyrs.

But Owens is a category by himself in this mess. He was on the fence anyway, leaning toward an NBA career over a fourth year of college basketball. Now what is the choice? The lady and the tiger have hung nameplates on their doors.

“If I hear we’re going on probation or anything like that, I’m definitely leaving,” Owens said Thursday. “Even if everything is still going on (by May 12, declaration date for underclassmen entering the NBA draft), the investigation and all the questions, I would say to heck with it and just go.”

But of course Owens was near the top of a very short list before the Syracuse program came unraveled. He lives, like precious few others, outside the hand-wringing over what becomes of athletes used up by the machinery of big-time college sport.

Like the scholars, your academic all-whatevers. They grow up to be Tom McMillen. Or the truly gifted, like Owens ... or Kenny Anderson or Shaquille O’Neal. Short list. For such as these, the diploma is a worthwhile alternative to be pursued in the event of catastrophic injury or an unseen crash in market value for superstars. For such as these, the walk through college is but a bridge -- between being a child and being very rich. Moralists will say this is college sport at its lowest, serving only as a minor league. Realists will say this is the system and these are the stars.

For Owens, the question has never been what, but always when. “He’s made for pro ball, simple as that,” said Donnie Walsh, general manager of the Indiana Pacers. This year the 6-9, 225-pound Owens has averaged 23.0 points, 11.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists for an Orange team that is 22-3 despite losing No. 1 pick Derrick Coleman and Stephen Thompson.

Owens’ worth is measured by the diversity of his play: Against pressure, he brings the ball up (“I hate it when a little guard is on me. I have to just stick my butt out and back him up,” Owens said); in the halfcourt game, he posts and feeds with equal veracity. Owens leads Syracuse in scoring, rebounding, steals and minutes and is second in assists and third in blocked shots. There is money awaiting him, lots of money, and this factor is not so simple as greed. In fact, it is a matter of generosity and this is where it gets complicated, this issue of how long to stay.

The trump card in Owens’ decision to attend Syracuse after a brilliant career at Carlisle (Pa.) High School was that his brother Michael, two years older, was a tailback -- and a happy one -- on the Orange football team. Last spring Michael was picked in the ninth round of the NFL draft by Kansas City, but released in training camp. It was just a thin line in “transactions,” but it dumped another load of emotional baggage onto Billy’s rack. Michael, you see, was going to push the Owens family -- father Bill, mother Marsha and three other grown children -- out of economic hardship so Billy could wait two more years before lifting them into affluence.

“I thought (Michael) was going to be an NFL player,” Owens said. “I thought he was going to take care of my mom and dad right away and I was going to be able to stay in school another year. But it didn’t happen like that. He got cut and everybody’s feeling bad around the house. Michael’s still working on it, though.” He is working on it, however, toward a shot in the fledgling World League of American Football. Base salary for running backs: $20,000. With incentives, the very best players in the WLAF could make close to $100,000. For most, it will not represent a windfall.

In truth, the path Owens would follow into his appointed future was cleared more than two years ago, when he told Sports Illustrated, in an article published before he played a college game, “I dream about being on the Lakers.” That would be L.A., not Oswego State.

A year ago, he rose among the elite players in the country, even in Derrick Coleman’s shadow, averaging 18.2 points and 8.4 rebounds. He established a propensity for playing big in big games, including a career-high 36 points at the Capital Centre against Georgetown. During the summer, he was by consensus the best player on U.S. Goodwill Games and world championship teams that included, among others, Todd Day and Lee Mayberry of Arkansas, Doug Smith of Missouri and Kenny Anderson of Georgia Tech.

The NBA, of course, is another matter altogether. Eighty-two games, 48 minutes, all that. Good players are chewed up with remarkable efficiency. Owens’ skills, however, are advanced enough that somebody will pay millions on the chance he can withstand the grind. There is general agreement among NBA general managers and player personnel directors contacted by Newsday that Shaquille O’Neal goes No. 1, if he comes out. “That’s a no-brainer,” Denver GM Bernie Bickerstaff said. After that, it gets down to need. You need a point guard, you take Anderson; you need a power guy, you take Larry Johnson of UNLV; you need a versatile inside-outside player, you take Owens. He probably won’t drop lower than No. 5 under any circumstances, and last year’s fifth pick, Chris Jackson of LSU, signed for $10 million over four years.

His first brush with Syracuse law enforcement -- an institution that often dogged Coleman -- came on Jan. 17, when his red Nissan Pathfinder was hit with a barrage of snowballs. Owens and three passengers (one of whom was UConn star guard Chris Smith) got out of the car and beat up Kevin Casavant, a 19-year-old student at SUNY-Brockport who had attended the Syracuse-Connecticut game that night. No charges were filed.

Last summer he worked at Michael Jordan’s camp and had the distinction of guarding Jordan in a post-lecture scrimmage. “One time, I had him,” Owens said. “I went by him and dunked. You could tell the next time he was serious instead of fooling around. He got down on defense and I couldn’t do anything. “

But there is a naive glee in Owens’ telling, as if he wants more days like that one. For himself and for everybody else he touches. “I always think about the NBA, always,” Owens said. “When I was growing up, I didn’t have anything, really. My father worked so hard just to keep us all in sneakers and clothing. I played basketball because I loved the game and because the opportunities are there, financially, if I’m good.”

He is. And they are.