Bryant seeks passing score

By Gary Bedore     May 31, 2000

Missouri basketball signee Travon Bryant received some bad news from SAT officials on Saturday.

The one-time Kansas recruit’s recent standardized test score left him 20 points shy of qualifying for a full scholarship at Mizzou.

Bryant, a 6-foot-9, 240-pounder from Long Beach, Calif.’s Jordan High, who visited Kansas for the 1999 Late Night With Roy Williams, will take both the SAT and ACT a final time in June as he continues his quest for eligibility.

“The way I look at it now is I’m getting closer and closer every try,” Bryant said Tuesday. “I go by Michael Jordan’s quote: ‘It’s all right to fail, because if you keep working you will eventually succeed.’ I’m going to a tutor every night and I really believe I’ll make it next time. It’s going to feel good when I make it.”

Bryant says he’ll definitely attend MU as a partial qualifier if he fails to record a qualifying score. Another Long Beach prep, point guard Wesley Stokes, recently learned he’d passed the SAT and would be able to play at MU next season.

“He was really excited,” Bryant said of his pal, Stokes. “With Wesley, myself, Arthur Johnson (6-9, 260) and Ricky Paulding (6-5), we’ll all be freshmen who are hungry and ready to get after it. We’ve got to go there and play hard. Age factor can’t come into play.”

Playing time opened last month when MU soph Keyon Dooling announced for the NBA Draft.

“Some reports say he might come back. I’d love to have him back, but either way I wish the best of luck to him,” Bryant said.

Bryant said he was not shocked Kansas signee DeShawn Stevenson recently declared for the NBA Draft.

“There was speculation and talk all along. It was not something that came out of the air,” Bryant said of Fresno, Calif., prep Stevenson, who made a campus visit to KU the same weekend as Bryant last October. The two also were teammates at the McDonald’s All-America game.

“Truthfully, after talking to him, I think he did really want to go to KU, but there were other reasons (failure to qualify) he was thinking about the NBA.

“Physically he’s ready for it. Mentally I’m not sure — traveling from one city to another night in and out — it’s going to wear on you. Going from high school and playing 30 games a year to the NBA and all that travel, it will take a toll on him.

“He’s good. I mean there are some NBA teams he could play for immediately. Mentally, that’s something else.”

In reflecting on his his recruitment by KU, Bryant says he now realizes the Jayhawks flat-out dropped him as a recruit early second semester.

He said his last contact with KU was a fax he received at his hotel at the McDonald’s game in March.

“I think they lost interest when I didn’t sign in the early period,” said Bryant, unable to come up with a decision in November, finally inking with MU in April. “I wasn’t going to be pressured into doing something I wasn’t ready to do. I’d have loved to have played at Kansas. Some of the stuff didn’t work out.

“My friend Sharonne Spencer plays for the girls team at KU. We talked about how it’ll be strange me not going there and now playing for Missouri.

“Yes I would have (gone to KU) if they kept in contact and stuff. If they kept recruiting me, I’ll just say there’s a good chance I’d be there now. But I can’t look at Kansas now and say I wish I could have gone there. I’m happy going to Missouri.”

Now that he’s MU bound, he could be an enemy in Lawrence at KU-MU games.

“If they boo me at Allen Fieldhouse … I like Kansas. I never said anything bad about it. In fact, before the summer evaluation period started last year I called coach (Neil) Dougherty and asked him if I could go to Late Night. I always liked KU.”

As far as his other finalist, Cal …

“They signed a 6-11 forward from Lithuania. Coach (Ben) Braun had said, ‘Would that be a factor if we sign him?’ I said, ‘I won’t lie to you. Yes.’ There’s nothing wrong with competing but they signed a kid at my position,” Bryant said.

“I am ready to come to Missouri. As a matter of fact, I’m working out now. I’m 6-9, 240. I’m trying to get bigger, get some more muscle. I’ve increased my bench 20 pounds.”

  • The Big 12 announced last week national TV broadcasts of men’s basketball games would increase from seven to 18 next season. ABC will televise KU at Oklahoma and Iowa State at Kansas. CBS will air KU at Ohio State and Texas at KU. One of the KU-Iowa State games and KU-Missouri games will also be on CBS.

  • Josh Childress, 6-6 from Lakewood, Calif., says he has a final five of KU, Arizona, Stanford, Duke and North Carolina. … Chuck Hayes, 6-6, of Modesto, Calif., says his final list includes KU, Kentucky, UCLA, UTEP, Arizona and possibly USC. A good football player, Hayes says he probably will not play football in college. If he does, UCLA could be his final destination, he indicates.

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