The breaks of the game

Jerry Tarkanian

Monday, Jan. 26, 2009 | 12:25 p.m.

Which of my players surprised me by not making it in the NBA?

First, it’s so tough to make it in the NBA. You have to be in the right place. But it did surprise me that Anderson Hunt didn’t make it.

He had that kind of talent. He was a great on-ball defender his freshman season. He came from a great high school program at Southwestern High in Detroit. He was very sound and played incredible defense.

Anderson had 29 points in that 103-73 rout of Duke for the 1990 national title and led us back to the Final Four the following season, when he was a junior.

Then he left early for the NBA draft, but he wasn’t selected. That backfired. It didn’t surprise me. I knew he didn’t have the point guard skills, and he wasn’t big enough to be a shooting guard.

He had such great speed, though. He could outrun the ball if you threw it over his head. On our team, he was a perfect fit.

He was picked in the CBA draft and wound up playing in Turkey, Poland and France. If Anderson stays for his senior year, his stock would have been bolstered.

Remember, though, Greg Anthony, Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon combined to play 36 seasons in the NBA. They made tens of millions of dollars. That's pretty good.

Someone asked about how well our guys shot. We didn't have exceptional shooting teams.

David Butler wasn’t a great shooter, except around the basket. For a center, he was only 6-feet-10. But he was great for us. Such a tough guy, a great post defender on an aggressive team.

Those were such great teams we had, but we did not have a lot of great shooters.

Stacey was a great, great defender, and a tough kid. A great runner who could fill the lane.

Greg Anthony was not a great shooter in college. He was adequate, but he became better in the NBA. His shot looked like a slingshot. He worked hard his redshirt year to straighten that out.

Larry was a good shooter, not a great shooter. But they all took great, great shots. The only real outside shooter in our starting lineup was Anderson.

I am pretty sure we led the nation in field-goal percentage, at something like 56 percent. We got so many layups and guys were so unselfish. We got so many of those layups out of our defense.

Someone wondered if our 1990-91 season would have ended differently had Dedan Thomas been able to play. I’m not sure. He was good, but I don’t know if he would have made a difference.

What would have made a difference is if we had Matt Othick, as I’ve stated here before. In my opinion, if we had Matt we would have had as good a guard play as anyone ever had in college basketball.

Greg, Anderson and Matt would have been every bit as good as anyone else. Othick did not play as well for Arizona as he would have for us. Arizona was mostly restrained in their offense.

In an offense with more freedom like ours, Matt would have been a tremendous player. We would have rotated those three guards and every one of them would have played 28 minutes or something.

Someone else was curious about the pep talk I gave to Memphis last season before the national championship game against Kansas.

My god, I really didn’t give a pep talk. I went to their practice. John Calipari and I are good friends. Lefty Dreisell and I went to the practice and Caliapri asked me to talk to his team, because we had won a national championship.

It was just a few minutes. I can’t remember what I said, but it was after their practice and before the national title game.

When the tournament started, I didn’t think they’d win. But they got better and better. They played so well in Houston in the South Regional semifinals and final.

At that point, I thought they had a great shot at winning.

Then, free throws. Kids, practice your free throws.