Thurman Takes His Vacation Seriously : Basketball: Summer league preparations for Goodwill Games force Razorback to stop celebrating NCAA title.

It has been three months since Scotty Thurman’s rainbow three-point jumper nestled into the basket and gave Arkansas the breathing room it needed to win an NCAA championship.

But it wasn’t until Thurman and Arkansas teammate Corey Beck arrived at UC Irvine last week as members of the U.S. Goodwill Games basketball team that the shouting began to die down.

“We basically celebrated it all the way up until this point,” said Thurman, who turns 20 in November. “When we got here, we realized it was time to put a lot of that aside. Our championship was with another team. Now we have to put our egos aside and do whatever it takes.

“I think we’ve enjoyed our national championship long enough. Now it’s time to get back to business.”

Thurman’s business at hand is showing Team USA basketball coaches George Raveling and Kelvin Sampson and NBA scouts that he can adjust his game to fit any system.

So far, the system and the limited playing have slowed that adjustment. In three games and 35 minutes of play, Thurman has scored 20 points and made seven of 16 shots with three rebounds and one assist.

“It’s tough going from being one of the team’s main options to where everybody’s the main option,” Thurman said. “But it’s all fun, because if the NBA is in my future, I would have to adjust to it anyway.

“It’s been kind of hard on Corey and me because neither one of us has ever really played with a team of this caliber.”

Sampson, Raveling’s assistant on Team USA, said Thurman isn’t doing as poorly as he thinks.

“I think Scotty’s a good basketball player,” Sampson said. “I don’t know that he’s great at any one thing. I think he’s pretty good at so many things. There’s nothing he can’t do real good.”

Raveling said that in itself is Thurman’s strength.

“We can use him as a ‘two’ or a ‘three,’ ” Raveling said. “That’s one of the things that makes him so valuable to this team, his versatility.”

Sampson said Thurman’s self-confidence is one of his more valuable assets.

“I see a little cockiness in Scotty that’s good,” Sampson said. “Not a bad cockiness. A cockiness that says, ‘I know I’m a good player. I belong here. I’m one of the better players.’ ”

That positive attitude has kept Thurman from getting down on himself after a few bad games.

“The way we’re playing, they’re making sure everybody is getting some minutes,” he said. “I’m not concerned about my stats, just what’s best for the team. I know myself what I can do.”

Though he has essentially played small forward at Arkansas, Thurman is trying to show NBA people that he can handle the ball well enough to be an off guard. At 6 feet 6 and 210 pounds, Thurman wonders how long he could survive at small forward in the NBA.

“I think I’m an off guard,” he said. “Nowadays the three guys are so much bigger. A guy like Charles Barkley could end up playing a ‘three’ spot. It’s kind of hard to match up with that.”

Thurman is expecting the eight-team Goodwill Games competition, which runs from July 23-28 in St. Petersburg, Russia, to be a preview of the NBA’s rough style.

“Magic and Isiah were telling us how physical it’s going to be,” Thurman said. “They said there’s going to be a lot of animosity toward us and that we’re going to be five fouls down before we start the game. But if you expect the worst, only good things can happen. You can’t let anything get you down.”

As is usually the case in international basketball competition, the U.S. team will probably be favored to win the Goodwill Games gold medal. But the role of a favorite was one that Thurman became accustomed to and relished last year with Arkansas.

“I was under pressure all season, but we did what we were supposed to do,” said Thurman, who averaged 17.4 points as a sophomore last year. “So this is no different. I feed off of pressure. A lot of people don’t like pressure. The ones that like it are the ones that go on to be great. Hopefully, I can go on to be great.”

If he handles pressure anything like he did in the final moments of Arkansas’ final-game victory over Duke, Thurman should do fine. However as much as he enjoyed the moment and the spotlight, Thurman is not thrilled about replaying his now-famous shot to reporters.

“People who don’t know me ask about it, but I really don’t think about it that much,” he said.

What he thinks about is how much better his team could have played against Duke.

“To be honest, I’m happy we won a championship and all,” he said, “But the way we won it, I wasn’t really proud of that. I thought we were better than what we displayed that game.”

All the more reason to prove last year wasn’t a fluke by going out and winning another national championship. That way he can spend another three months celebrating his back-to-back titles.

“I’ll admit,” Thurman said, “We talk about it a lot.”