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Morris, 49ers Moving Forward
by Frank Burlison, Long Beach Press-Telegram
December 21, 2007
LONG BEACH - The collective performance by the Long Beach State men's
basketball team during its Nov. 10 season debut mirrored that of its best
player.
The visiting Brigham Young University Cougars toppled the 49ers, playing
their first game under coach Dan Monson, 74-34.
And Donovan Morris - who had waited a year as a non-playing redshirt after
transferring from Fresno State before he could make his debut in a Long
Beach State uniform - missed his first 12 shots from the field and finished
the afternoon hitting just 1 of his 15 attempts.
Talk about the "no place to go but up" moments.
"I think I went back to my room and didn't talk to anyone for about
three days," the 6-foot-3 junior said early Wednesday afternoon,
forcing a smile, about 15 hours after scoring a career-high 26 points
and leading the 49ers to a victory over the University of San Francisco
Dons on that very same Walter Pyramid floor where he and his teammates
had stumbled out of the gate some five weeks before.
"When I lose, I feel like jumping off of a bridge. I know that if
I take 15 shots, I need to make 6, 7 or 8 of them. I thought, `This can't
be happening!' I'd worked so hard in the summer."
The collective, and individual, turnarounds aren't yet in the 180-degree
range.
But the 3-6 49ers are a much better team today than they were on the Saturday
afternoon early last month.
And Morris hasn't had anything remotely like a BYU flashback when it comes
to shooting.
Over the eight games since his 1-of-15 shooting and 2-point scoring performance
in the 40-point loss to the Cougars, Morris has hit 47 of 87 shots from
the field (.540) and averaged 18.4 points per game.
"As I said at the (Big West) Media Day," Monson said - expounding
on Morris' ability to average nearly 20 points per game in a stretch when
he is taking only 11 shots per game - "he is very `efficient.'
"His biggest strength as a player is his versatility as a scorer.
When he was at Fresno State (for two seasons), he was more one-dimensional,
a `catch and shoot' guy who, if he was guarded (tightly) he would pass
and, if not, he would shoot.
"But (for the 49ers), he can score in a variety of ways. He is a
very good `finisher' (inside the lane) and has a good mid=range game.
And he has the ability to get to the free-throw line (after drawing fouls)."
And when Morris gets to the line, he doesn't miss often (he is 41 of 50
for .820).
But it was in the days following that nightmarish shooting performance
on Nov. 10 that Morris learned a lot about the fourth coach he's played
for since enrolling at Fresno State in the fall of 2004.
"He pointed out that I'd grabbed (a team-high) 10 rebounds, played
pretty well on defense and played hard and that was why he still had confidence
in me," Morris said.
"And that's the thing with Coach Monson and his staff (of assistants).
He can live with you if your shots aren't falling, as long as you continue
to play hard and play defense."
Morris also doesn't have a problem with receiving criticism - no matter
how harsh or vocal it might be at times - from Monson and assistants Vic
Couch, Rod Palmer or Eric Brown.
He understands the method and the reasoning.
"If you're going to yell at me," Morris said, "tell me
what I'm doing wrong (as opposed to "yelling for yelling's sake").
And that's what they (Monson and his staff) do. They'll get on your case
but they do it to try to make you a better player. I respect that and
I will do anything they want me to do."
Morris is a 2002 graduate of Cajon High who spent a couple of years at
Winchendon Prep School (located about 65 miles from Boston) in Massachusetts
in order to get his academics in order before he could accept a scholarship
to an NCAA Division I program.
Yes, it took Morris a while to understand the importance of sitting in
a classroom and thinking about things other than his jump shot.
"I remember when I heard the coaches at the University of Wisconsin
were interested in me (after watching him play in a summer tournament
for the same Inland Empire Basketball Program that also produced the likes
of Darren Collison of UCLA and former Boston College standout Sean Marshall),"
he said, forcing another smile.
"But then they saw my transcripts ..."
Morris could complete the work needed for his bachelor's degree in Black
Studies by the end of next semester but, with another season of eligibility,
will delay doing so until the conclusion of the 2008 fall semester "because
I don't want to start a master's program next year."
And, barring the unforeseen, a little more than a year from now he will
have played under the same college coach for two seasons for the first
time.
Ray Lopes recruited him to Fresno State, where he averaged 11.7 points
and 3.4 rebounds while starting 24 times as a freshman.
After Lopes was replaced by then-BYU coach Steve Cleveland that spring,
the coaching carousel began for Morris.
"There was no chemistry (between he and Cleveland) from the get-go,"
Morris said. "In the first meeting, he said that, after watching
game film, he saw me as a `bench player' (reserve). How could he say that
without even watching me in practice?
"From there, things went downhill."
Morris started just nine times as a sophomore (averaging 7.5 points per
game) and ultimately relocated to Long Beach State, where he knew the
coach (Larry Reynolds) and one of his assistants (Reggie Howard) from
when he used to play pickup games at Cal State Bernardino when they coached
there.
Howard was suspended last February during the course of a school and NCAA
investigation into alleged rules violations by Reynolds and some of his
staff members, and Reynolds wasn't retained by the school despite a 24-victory,
NCAA Tournament-season.
And, when Monson was hired, "to be honest, I didn't know what to
think," Morris said.
"But, with a new coach, I had to wonder, `Am I going to get kicked
to the curb again?"
And that's been anything but the case.
"The more I talked with him (Monson), the more comfortable I became,"
he said.
Any trepidation on Morris' part would have been understandable.
"The biggest thing about Morris is how coachable he has been,"
Monson said.
"And, for someone who has been through four different head coaches,
it would be easy not to be (coachable) because he has seen the ways other
coaches do things. But, since the first day here, he's done everything
we've asked him to do, on and off the court."
And that includes, with one Nov. 10 exception, knocking in a large percentage
of shots.
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