Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, freshmen were not allowed to play varsity college basketball.
These days, an NCAA without first-year players is as difficult to fathom as Mark Hamill winning an Oscar. We all know about Duke's freshman sensations, but other Atlantic Coast Conference squads feature talented rookies as well.
Freshmen contributing to teams' success has become the norm in big-time college basketball. When underclassmen head to the NBA, they leave openings for newcomers to fill, Maryland coach Gary Williams said in Tuesday's ACC teleconference, but with youth doesn't necessarily come inexperience.
"These freshmen are playing a tremendous amount of games, from the time they're freshmen in high school until they get to college," he explained. "Fifteen years ago, a guy would play maybe one summer league for 15 games or something like that and then the high school season. Now there's AAU in the spring and the fall, there's great AAU in the summertime. So you have maybe 60, 70 games playing against the best players in the country, and they gain confidence from that."
While today's freshmen may be more seasoned than their predecessors, they still have less experience than their veteran teammates. Over and over again, their coaches talk about how they'll keep improving, how they have to learn to compete in a top conference like the ACC, how they'll make freshmen mistakes and how they'll probably "hit a wall" at some point.
Virginia's Jeff Jones summed up the paradox of relying on first-year players when he discussed highly touted recruits Donald Hand and Chezley Watson, who average 37.4 minutes but only 6.7 points per game between them.
"I think they're doing a good job," Jones said. "I think they've learned a lot, but I think they have a lot to learn. The consistency of our basketball team will parallel [the progress] of Donald and Chezley. Statistically, both of them probably in the future will do a little bit better job shooting the basketball."
Perhaps the freshmen's biggest contribution thus far, however, was a charge Hand took in the Cavaliers' victory over N.C. State on Sunday. Jones said he hoped that Hand and Virginia's other youngsters come to the realization that producing on offense isn't the only way to help their team.
The top-scoring freshman in the ACC is Georgia Tech's Dion Glover, who averages 17.8 points per game. The 6-foot-5 guard has sparked the Yellow Jackets to a surprising 12-5 record (including 2-3 in conference play) but has struggled with his shot lately. Glover is averaging only 11.3 points over his last four games, all in the ACC. His fellow first-year standouts Travis Spivey and Alvin Jones have also had their ups and downs.
Just as coaches have to be concerned that a freshman doesn't overreact to success, they have to be concerned that he'll overreact to a lack thereof.
"He's a great kid," said Glover's coach, Bobby Cremins. "He will learn it and it will all come together. He's shown some great signs, obviously. Right now he's just disappointed. I think he gets a little down on himself. He had such great expectations of himself."
Sometimes, though, there is only so much a coach can do for a newcomer experiencing his first trip through the ACC. Last week, Wake Forest's Dave Odom had to prepare his wunderkind point guard, Robert O'Kelley, who averages 15.7 points per game, to face Duke's Steve Wojciechowski.
"Simply what I told him was that there's no way for me to describe to him the amount of pressure Steve Wojciechowski was going to put on him," Odom said, "and I could only hope he wouldn't be pressured into things he usually wouldn't try."
O'Kelley shot 3-of-15 from the floor. But if he's still with the Demon Deacons in three years, chances are he will do the same to some unlucky rookie.
Although Williams doesn't have any freshmen in his starting lineup, he is well aware of the rewards and perils of using first-year players. It hasn't been too many years since a quartet of freshmen formed the nucleus of a good Maryland team.
"Anytime you have quite a few freshmen playing key roles... you'll naturally get better as the season goes on," he said. "As they get used to themselves and the presences of veteran players, it becomes a better basketball team...
"You just hope they can handle the success early and the academics and the people telling you how good you are, going from high schools to the college situation with the publicity you get there."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.