COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S FINAL FOUR : Cowboys Crashing the Party

Big Country arrived at the Kingdome Friday afternoon, an event that, of course, necessitated a clean-up crew.

Shattered glass, all over the place. Bits of it strewn across the court. Pieces of it dusting Bryant (Big Country) Reeves’ trademark brush cut. Shards of it being passed around the Oklahoma State dressing room, souvenirs from the Cowboys’ abruptly abbreviated public workout on the eve of the Final Four.

Big Country ended it, in front of a roaring audience, with a reverse dunk that vaporized an entire backboard.

Teammates scattered for cover. North Carolina’s players, due on the court next, tapped their Tar Heels impatiently as they waited for a replacement backboard to be put into place. Oklahoma State forward Terry Collins nervously asked an NCAA official, “Do we have to pay for that backboard?”

“We’ll just take it out of your per diem,” the official quipped.

Collins: “How many backboards did you have here?”

Official: “One more than we have today.”

The folk legend of Big Country was growing by the minute.

Was this the first backboard to be broken at a Final Four, the press wanted to know.

Well, no official records are kept, but Darryl Dawkins never played college basketball and Shaquille O’Neal never made it to a Final Four so, yes, is probably was.

And for Reeves, personally?

“That’s the fourth one that I’ve broke,” he revealed. “I broke one when I was with Team USA, traveling in Europe, between my sophomore and junior year. And I broke two in practice last year. This is the first one this year.”

And where in Europe did the first backboard die?

“In Italy.”

And what did the Italians think?

“I don’t know. Something that they’d never seen.”

Oklahoma State players were ushered into the interview room for eyewitness accounts. Forward Scott Pierce was asked to compare this demolition to the previous ones. Pierce said he couldn’t compare it because “first of all, this is the Final Four and it’s never happened before. But last year, there was a span of two weeks where he broke two backboards, so it really doesn’t surprise me. I don’t know how much Bryant weighs, but I’m sure it’s a good deal. And he sometimes comes down with a lot of force, so it doesn’t surprise me at all.”

And how much does Bryant weigh?

“About 280, 282,” Big Country reported. “About seven pounds more than when I was a freshman. But I was in terrible shape then. Couldn’t even run a mile. . . . I’ve redistributed my weight since then.”

Really. Teammates and coaches back Reeves on this. Flat-topped head, bottomed-out torso, fleshy arms and jowls jiggling up and down the floor--needles on top of a haystack remains the Big Country look, yet those who were there swear Reeves is a chiseled god compared to the flabby freshman who wandered in off the dusty streets of Gans, Okla., four years ago.

Sean Sutton, son of Oklahoma State Coach Eddie Sutton and a member of that 1991-92 Cowboy team, recalled the sensation of watching Reeves practice for the first time.

“We couldn’t believe we’d actually sign a guy like that,” he said. “There had to be somebody out there better than that.”

Eddie Sutton remembered Sean coming home after a summer pickup game with Reeves and reporting, “Dad, I don’t think there’s any way this guy can play. We’re playing full court and we’re passing him going both ways. He only runs top of the (free throw) circle to top of the circle. He never moves.”

Sutton soon took a view for himself.

“He had a hard time running up and down the floor,” the coach said. “His tongue would be hanging out. He’d be tripping over lines, fumbling the ball. It wasn’t ‘What couldn’t he do’ then. What could he do?”

So why did Sutton throw him a full scholarship?

For one, 7-foot-tall mounds of Pla-Doh are hard to come by in Stillwater. Sutton wanted to see just what he could mold. And there were “those great hands of his. Soft paws. When he came to us, I don’t believe many college programs would’ve given him a scholarship, because he was really rough. But the thing that sold me on Bryant Reeves was his commitment. I told him, ‘You’ve got a long ways to go and there’s going to be a lot of long hours of hard work. Are you willing to go through that?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ ”

Four years later, Reeves is the reason Oklahoma State has landed in the Final Four, with requisite crash and boom. He’s averaging 21.4 points, 9.5 rebounds and who knows how many yarns about his hometown of Gans--population “218,” according to Reeves.

“Gans is a terrific place,” Reeves said. “It’s got three buildings. A school, the post office and a store--oh, excuse me, it has a volunteer fire department, too. It has one stop sign. The reason a stop sign was put there was so people coming through would have to stop and then they could get a whole view of Gans.”

Reeves’ high school team consisted of eight players, total, making five-on-five scrimmages somewhat difficult. Practices at Gans High consisted of two-line layup drills, the three-man weave and free throws. Lots of free throws.

“His father, Carl, practiced with him a lot,” Sutton said. “Like a lot of places in that part of the country, you want to shoot around, you play on dirt. The basket would be hanging there, the winds would be blowing. His father chased a lot of balls.”

Sutton marvels at Reeves’ development--from a third-world Country to third-team All-America to a possible first-round NBA draft choice.

“He’ll be an NBA player,” Sutton said. “How good he’ll be, I don’t know, because that’s an entirely different game.

“But he’s a good outside shooter. We don’t let him do it much, but he’s a good three-point shooter. He could be a Bill Laimbeer-type player. You know how Laimbeer drew the big players out with his shooting ability? Bryant can do that.”

NBA backboards had better be braced. Let it be noted that on the day before the NCAA Final Four, 1995, they were officially warned.