Toreros’ Woods Stepping Forward to Take Challenge : Basketball: His role as a scoring leader puts him up against the league’s tougher players.

Kelvin Woods just had to make things hard on himself.

The University of San Diego’s small forward/power forward/post rolled into one started the season so well, he made himself a marked man.

He opened with 24 points in the Toreros’ 60-57 victory over San Diego State. Then he followed with a career-high 25 points and hit both three-point attempts in a 75-68 victory over Southern Methodist.

After two games he had made 15 of 27 shots, 17 of 21 free throws, and was averaging 24.5 points, almost unheard of in Coach Hank Egan’s patient, spread-the-wealth offense.

After the SMU game, Egan said, “It’s gonna get tougher now for Kelvin.”

It did.

With his teammates struggling and defenses beginning to collapse on the 6-foot-5 senior, Woods totaled only 13 points in the next two games, against UC Santa Barbara and Stephen F. Austin, and he shot four for 21. Not surprisingly, the Toreros lost both games.

But the offense since has begun to be more consistent. The Toreros take a 5-3 record into Sunday night’s contest against Cal State Northridge at the USD Sports Center.

Woods has leveled off to a 15.1-point average, which ranks 10th among West Coast Conference players. In a 62-54 victory at San Jose last weekend, Woods was back on his game, scoring 12 of his 15 points in the second half.

“Some of that (drop) was natural,” Egan said. “He gives away an awful lot at only 6-5, he’s got to fight (bigger opponents) off the boards, keep them at bay in the low post and at the same time he’s our go-to guy. At San Jose he scores nine in the last six minutes. That tells you something.”

Though Woods is 48 points short of becoming USD’s 11th player to score 1,000 points in a career, he cheerfully says he doesn’t really care how much he scores as long as the effort results in a victory. His biggest unfulfilled goal so far at USD, he said, is earning a berth in the NCAA tournament.

If USD does take that step this season, Woods will probably be a big factor. The record shows Woods is usually better in big games. As a junior, when he earned all-WCC honors with a season average of 13.6 points, he was the Toreros’ leading scorer in five of the last seven games, averaging 18.2 points down the stretch. He scored 23 points against Gonzaga in the team’s conference tournament victory and averaged 19 points in two games against WCC-champion Pepperdine.

“If I think I have a shot I shoot it,” he said. “Those first two games I was hot, I was just happy to be taking the shots. (Then) the defense did affect me, but I’m not looking to shoot less. I wasn’t getting the shots I was getting the first couple games, but when teams scouted us they thought I was the only player, which isn’t true.”

Woods, who started nine games as a freshman out of Damien High in La Verne, has progressed steadily throughout his college career thanks, in large part, Egan said, to his intelligence.

“When it’s a thinking game he’s at his best,” Egan said. “Kelvin is very good at knowing where he can score.”

Agreeing with that assessment, Woods said, “Because of my size I have to think. Being a 6-5 post, I’m just not gonna shoot over anybody. I have to think of ways to get open, to split the double. Thinking has always been my advantage.”

Teammate and fellow four-year player Wayman Strickland said that while Woods “doesn’t look like he should be real effective in the post, he’s got a great sense of the basketball game and a bunch of moves.”

Woods has put his analytical mind and work ethic to good use off the court as well. He’ll graduate in the spring with a degree in accounting and already has accepted a job with an accounting firm. He’s been on the conference’s all-scholar team the past three years and was USD’s scholar athlete of the year as a junior.

“You talk about a bright man--bright basketball-wise and bright in the classroom,” Egan said.

Woods’ cerebral approach has come in handy, because that’s where most of his growth has been. Woods was essentially the same burly 6-5, 240 pounder in high school, a basketball player hiding in a tight end’s body.

He has expanded his game to three-point range, but he remains most dangerous when he gets the ball near the basket, having learned how to get position and keep defenders on his back. After his performance against San Diego State, Aztec Coach Jim Brandenburg commented sadly, “We were playing a freshman on Woods and it caught up.”

Egan said of opposing defenses, “They’re sitting on him, they’re trying to take him away. (But) there’s no place you can actually (defend) him. We can move him around pretty good.

“When we recruited him he was about the same size. We thought maybe he’d grow a little more. What he’s done is gotten better in every other way--his skill on the court, his intelligence. We didn’t get the physical growth but that’s OK, we like what we have.”

Woods played football in high school, but decided to concentrate on basketball when he made the varsity as a sophomore.

“San Diego has worked out real well for me,” he said. “Sometimes I think about it--I don’t know if I could’ve gone into a bigger program (out of high school). Now I feel I could play at a bigger school, but I don’t feel bigger schools are any better than us, talent-wise.”

With a job lined up, Woods won’t be waiting nervously for chances to continue his playing career, though he says he’ll consider possibilities.

But enough people have told him he looks like a football player that Woods makes this observation: “We joke about it--’You should play tight end for the Chargers’--but if I could get a tryout, I’ll try out. I’m big enough, and I’ve got good enough hands.”