An athlete has a terrific freshman season and, as soon as the next year rolls around, what does he hear?
Are you worried about the sophomore jinx?
“That’s just a superstition,” says Drew Gooden, the 6-foot-10 Kansas University sophomore whose freshmen year was terrific indeed.
Gooden started only eight of the Jayhawks’ 34 games, including the last four, yet led the team in rebounding (7.5) and was second in scoring (10.8).
Only one other Kansas University player, Danny Manning, had higher rebounding numbers as a freshman, and Manning’s average was just a fraction higher at 7.6.
Manning, who went on to become an All-American and lead the Jayhawks to the 1988 NCAA championship, didn’t suffer a sophomore jinx, and Gooden doesn’t plan to have one, either, even if he is admittedly superstitious.
And what might Gooden’s biggest superstition be?
“Splitting a pole,” he replied.
Splitting a pole?
“It’s when a group of guys are walking together and they come to a pole,” Gooden said. “Sometimes a guy will walk around one side and the others will go around the other side. You have to walk with the group or you’ll have bad luck.”
And where did Gooden come up with that bit of superstition?
“I just got that walking the streets of Richmond,” Gooden said with a smile.
That’s Richmond in California, not Richmond in Virginia. Gooden was born and raised on the east side of San Francisco Bay, earning third-team Parade All-Amer-ican honors at Richmond’s El Cerrito High before deciding to go halfway across the country to college.
Now, after a year of adjusting to university life and to college basketball, Gooden may be ready for a breakout season along with the other two freshmen who came in with him Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich.
“We have an advantage in that we know what we’re in for,” Gooden said. “We know about the travel, about the Big 12 and we know the system.”
Gooden could improve on his shooting he made 45.1 percent of his shots last winter and on his passing. Coach Roy Williams often groaned about Gooden’s penchant for thinking he was a point guard, and attempting impossible passes.
“Me and coach talked about that,” Gooden said. “I’d throw passes behind my back last year. This time I’ll be more mature. I know it comes with maturity.”
Maturity should also make Gooden stronger and more of an offensive force.
“They banged me last year,” he said. “Now I’ve got to bang them back.”
Gooden also often lost the ball as he backed toward the basket because he dribbled too high. In order to improve on that fundamental, Gooden practiced dribbling with a soccer ball and a tennis ball during the off-season.
“There were about a million drills I worked on this summer,” he said.
Work, work, work. Practice, practice, practice. If you don’t improve on your weaknesses, you can’t improve your team, and if the team doesn’t improve the ultimate goal won’t be reached.
Williams has intimated practices will be more rugged this year, and that’s OK with Gooden.
“Practice was tough last year,” he said, “but they say it was much easier than it was in, say, 1993 and 1994.”
Kansas’ last appearance in the NCAA Final Four was in 1993.
For the last three years, Kansas has been eliminated in the second round. Gooden hopes that trend changes in 2000-2001.
“I really want to win,” Gooden said. “I never won a title in high school and we didn’t win one last year. I’m just like Charles Barkley. I don’t have any rings.”
