It’s Not How Many, It’s How He Did It

Still searching for the second-most amazing statistic about Eddie House’s 61-point effort in Arizona State’s double-overtime victory over Cal. . . .

House outscored 55 Division I teams Saturday.

He needed only 30 shots to do it.

Only one of his baskets was a layup.

He made seven of 10 from three-point range, 18 of 19 from the free-throw line.

He scored 42 points in regulation despite a 7 1/2-minute scoreless stretch, then 19 more in overtime.

And get ready for this: He mixed in three assists, and leads Arizona State in assists as well as steals this season.

When you see someone score 61 points, you figure when he touches the ball it disappears into a black hole, even if it’s the bottom of the net.

What might help Arizona State against the swarm of gimmick defenses to come is that House also looks to pass, a trait that helps keep him on friendly terms with his teammates.

“It makes a difference,” sophomore forward Awvee Storey said. “You play with someone who’s just gunning the ball, Eddie doesn’t do that. When Eddie gets the ball, everyone’s still moving because they still know to expect a pass.”

Freshman guard Kyle Dodd admires that.

“Eddie’s not the type of guy that’s just going out trying to get his own shots,” Dodd said. “He does everything he does within the confines of our offense. It’s kind of neat.”

As for what transpired Saturday: “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Dodd said. “Eddie’s Eddie, that’s all you can say.”

House deserves a turnaround-player-of-the-year award simply for what he has done in the last month or so.

On Dec. 7, he went 0 for 16 against Brigham Young. (That he was allowed to do that gives you an idea how much confidence Coach Rob Evans has in House’s shot.)

After an 11-day break for exams, a newly determined House started a six-game tear during which he has scored more than 40 points three times, averaging almost 38. In that stretch, he has made 55% of his shots--an astounding 57% from three-point range--and 92% from the line.

From “Brick House” to “Burning Down the House.”

A national media darling this week, House is taking it in stride.

“I’ll let them talk about me. I don’t need to talk about myself,” he said. “It’s like the BYU game. I was 0 for 16, I was the talk of the town then. I picked myself up and moved on. Now I had 61, I’m the talk of the town again, and I’m going to pick up and move on.”

Cal did a pretty fair job of running different defenders at House, enough so that Cal Coach Ben Braun jokes maybe he should have tried a triangle and two--with the two both on House.

But House’s ultra-quick release along with the elevation he gets on his jumper make him tough to stop, and when he gets in the lane, watch for the high-arcing lob shot he learned at Hayward High in Northern California, where his coaches made their 6-foot-1 guard practice shooting over a broomstick.

“Just by looking at the faces of the guys trying to guard him, it looks like they’re just miserable,” Dodd said. “It’s a pretty difficult task.”

USC and UCLA get their turn next week.

Evans deserves a good bit of credit for the success that probably will make House, who averaged 18.9 points last season, a first-round NBA draft pick this year.

Beset by various discipline problems earlier in his career, House has adjusted to Evans’ expectations.

“He has rules, certain rules I have to abide by,” House said. “Some other coaches didn’t have those rules previously.”

House also has worked harder to reach his own expectations. Even in practice, he finishes first in the wind sprints, and at every free moment is shooting--little bank shots, three-pointers--in between drills.

No one can resist saying it: House is on fire. Evans doesn’t necessarily think it’s temporary.

“I’m not so sure he’s [merely] in a zone. Eddie’s just a great scorer,” he said. “He’s the best I’ve ever seen as far as being able to get his shot many different ways. He gets his shot off the catch, off the dribble. He has that quick release. He gets steals, he rebounds the ball offensively.

“I played against [Rick] Mount and [Pete] Maravich and [Calvin] Murphy, Lucius Allen, people like that, and I’ve had great scorers. But he’s the best I’ve ever seen at that.”

REMEMBERING LMU

A performance such as the one by House brings to mind the high-flying days of Loyola Marymount a decade ago, when Bo Kimble scored 54 points in a game against St. Joseph’s.

(The NCAA record for points in a game between Division I teams involved Loyola Marymount too: In 1991, Kevin Bradshaw of U.S. International scored 72 points in a 186-140 loss to the Lions.)

After a long decline, Loyola Marymount has bottomed out under Coach Charles Bradley, who is in the final year of a three-year contract.

The Lions don’t have a victory over a Division I team this season, and their 11-game losing streak ended with a victory last week over Occidental, a Division III team.

“We’re certainly at the extreme end of where we were 10 years ago,” said Athletic Director Bill Husak, who recently pulled out a tape of Loyola Marymount’s 1990 NCAA tournament upset of Michigan after the death of Hank Gathers, and later this season will oversee the retirement of Gathers’ and Kimble’s jerseys.

Those were extraordinary times and sad times, but Husak doesn’t believe Loyola Marymount’s run to the final eight before losing to Nevada Las Vegas in 1990 is an accomplishment that can never be repeated.

“There’s no reason why Gonzaga last year can’t be LMU,” he said.

For Loyola Marymount to even compete in the West Coast Conference against the likes of Gonzaga and San Francisco will take a different coach, however. Bradley--previously head coach at Division II Metropolitan State in Denver--clearly hasn’t recruited Division I-caliber players.

Husak, who arrived at Loyola Marymount after Bradley, supports his coach for now. At the end of the season, he should avoid the mistakes of the past and hire a West Coast coach with close current ties to Division I.

THE SUMMER DEBATE

When Southeastern Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer talks about eliminating summer recruiting, he strikes a chord with people who would like to throw out shoe companies and AAU coaches.

It’s more complicated than that, of course.

“Roy’s passionate and he believes if you take the coaches out of the summer, the summer camps and the nonscholastic competition will go away,” said Jim Haney, executive director of the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches. “Frankly, I don’t believe that’s the case at all.

“It’s been proven over time that when there are more obstacles to contact [between college coaches and prospective athletes], pretty soon other people are stepping into the gap. This would be no different.”

Evaluating players at national tournaments and camps is also cost-efficient--an NCAA favorite--and allows coaches to rate players against others of similar ability.

Much more likely than a ban on summer recruiting is a reduction in the July evaluation period, such as the proposal that calls for a reduction from 24 to 14 days.

“I think there will be summer recruiting,” Haney said. “It’s a question of how many days, whether it’s 14, 16, 18, 20.”

THE WALTON GANG II

The foot injury to Arizona’s Richard Jefferson has thrust redshirt freshman forward Luke Walton into the starting lineup for the foreseeable future.

As his two-point, seven-assist performance against Stanford showed, the 6-foot-8, 228-pound Walton doesn’t have the scoring ability of his father, Bill Walton, but he certainly has his passing touch.

He isn’t the only one.

Nate Walton, a redshirt junior at Princeton, has been thrust into the starting lineup because of an ankle injury to Mason Rocca.

The 6-7, 215-pound forward averages only 4.5 points a game but leads the Tigers in assists with 69 in 14 games, many of them on back-door passes, and had nine assists against Monmouth.