Looking for a few good big men

By Ron Kantowski

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 | 2 a.m.

They make an odd couple — the old equipment manager and the former college star scouting players among the many high school basketball prospects who descend on Las Vegas each summer.

Fifteen years ago, Steve Silsby, a self-described gym rat from North Tonawanda in upstate New York, walked onto the Arizona State campus and talked himself into a job as student equipment manager for Sun Devils coach Bill Frieder.

The Sun Devils’ star player was Ron Riley, the former Clark High ace who left Arizona State as its all-time scoring leader. But not once during his four years did Riley snap Silsby on the rear end with a towel, the way most star players do to the guys who wash their socks.

So years later, after Riley was done playing ball overseas and thought it might be time to complete work on that psychology degree — and Silsby had been promoted to head golf and head basketball coach at the University of Great Falls, an NAIA college in Montana — a phone call was made, an acquaintance was renewed, and a bag and a tackle box were packed.

Silsby was more than happy to make him an assistant coach. Welcome to the Big Sky, big fella. Don’t forget to bring your winter coat.

And when I go down to Las Vegas for the AAU basketball week and recruiting extravaganza, do you think I might be able to sleep on your folks’ couch?

Bonanza High

It’s 8:15 a.m. and the Nike-sponsored Main Event is just starting to wipe the sleep from its eyes at the Bonanza High School gym, whose primary feature is faux wood paneling reminiscent of a hunting lodge. It’s just the type of place a couple of guys from Montana could relate to. But Silsby, who slept at the Four Queens instead of on Riley’s couch — Great Falls is small, but not that small — thought the game started at 9 instead of 8. So they miss the team from San Diego finishing overtime with only four players, because two of its six have fouled out.

Now the Las Vegas Toritos and one of those teams from Indianapolis are running up and down the floor in a blur as a bunch of Big Ten assistant coaches and one from Central Michigan make notations on their roster sheets. And that guy wearing glass slippers with a swoosh on the side — isn’t that Jim Larranaga of George Mason?

If the Big Ten schools are looking at a kid, Silsby and Riley usually look elsewhere, because kids being recruited by Big Ten schools wouldn’t know Great Falls from Niagara Falls. So they head to the auxiliary gym at Bonanza, which smells like varnish and is about as well-ventilated as a construction worker’s boot.

Get a number and a name, Silsby says. And if you can swing it, a telephone number. The Great Falls coaches recruit cities instead of players, figuring that a kid from Spokane or Salt Lake City or Boise will at least have heard of Great Falls and/or own a winter coat. But there we are anyway, standing in the doorway watching a team from Memphis, because it has a 6-foot-7 kid, No. 45, who has caught Riley’s eye.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s a situation — grades, playing time, the desire to fly-fish for rainbow trout — that could entice a kid like that to attend a school like Great Falls.

Then a teenage girl faints and crashes to the floor and one of those computer routers, that had been taped on the wall, does the same thing. Paramedics are called. Maintenance is called. Cell phones to head coaches on the other side of town are called. Because if No. 45 from Memphis is an NAIA player, he apparently runs the floor like an NCAA player. And now coaches from a lot bigger schools than Great Falls are sticking their heads in the doorway, too.

“They’re all over him,” Riley sighs.

“For every one that works out, you fail with a hundred others,” Silsby says before suggesting to Riley they get something to eat.

“No Taco Bell. I want to go to a real restaurant.

“Is there a Denny’s or an IHOP around here?”

Big Dog’s Cafe & Casino

It isn’t a pancakes place and Roy Williams isn’t seated at the next table, but Silsby seems delighted with the decision to stop the cream-colored rent-a-box at Big Dog’s on West Sahara, where he orders a tuna salad sandwich. He says that while Great Falls isn’t for everybody, it could be for you, if you want to run the floor and play a little defense for a private Catholic school with an enrollment of just more than 1,000 full-time students. No giant lecture halls at Great Falls. Just Father James Sikora’s religion class.

Don’t worry about the Holy Wars, Joan of Arc and Father Sikora, Silsby says. He’s a big basketball fan. But don’t forget to pack a sweater and your winter coat.

A river — the Missouri — runs through Great Falls (pop. 56,690) in west-central Montana, which is why they made that fishing movie with Brad Pitt there. But it’s not hard to get to, even from Las Vegas. Just head north on I-15 and keep going for 17 1/2 hours, although a cheap Allegiant Air flight will get you there in a fraction of the time. Great Falls is home to Malmstrom Air Force Base. Ryan Leaf, the former NFL quarterback, was born there. So were adult film stars Victoria Paris and Tera Patrick, although their names seldom come up in the recruiting pitch.

The Argonauts of the University of Great Falls play in the Frontier Conference, along with Carroll College, Lewis & Clark, MSU Northern, Montana Western, Montana Tech and Rocky Mountain College, all of the Big Sky State, and Westminster of Salt Lake City. Great Falls dropped athletics in 1985 and reinstated them in 2000. But returning to respectability has been more difficult than wrestling a grizzly bear — the Argos won 12 games in Silsby’s first year and eight last year.

Great Falls is interested in two kinds of players — anybody who can run the floor and anybody who answers to “Big Country.” Or “Hoss.” Silsby detests the half-court game but it’s hard to go 94 feet with a roster consisting of guys from Helena, Havre, Cut Bank and Chinook.

That’s why we pile into the cream-colored rent-a-box after lunch and head to the 24-Hour Fitness in Summerlin. Riley’s brother, Jermone, the new head coach at Palo Verde High School, wants Ron to check out this 6-foot-7 beanpole who can run the floor and might be looking for a place to play after bouncing around the junior college circuit.

Although they think this kid could be The Answer, neither Silsby nor Riley knows his name, which I find amusing. I ask Riley if he thinks Roy Williams is driving all over town in a cream-colored rent-a-box, looking for the next Tyler Hansbrough in a local fitness center.

Riley says Roy’s probably getting a massage back at the spa, waiting for the limousine to pick him up.

Agassi Super Sport 24-Hour Fitness, Summerlin

When we arrive at the health club, Jermone Riley and the kid, whose name is Troy Edwards, are there, along with Alex Dimotsantos. He’s another local kid who played for Jermone on the AAU summer circuit and is now hooping it up at a small school that is either named for somebody who has a lot of money or has “Fork” as part of its name.

There’s a problem, though, because the guy with the big biceps won’t let us in the gym because we don’t have memberships or do have a camera. I mention these guys are college coaches and they know Roy Williams but Biceps doesn’t fall for it. Eventually, he gets hold of corporate headquarters because no more than 35 minutes later, I am watching what appears to be drool forming at the corner of Silsby’s mouth.

The beanpole has six-pack abs and he can run the floor. And dunk. With authority.

“If this kid has two years (of remaining eligibility) life is good,” Silsby says.

Cheyenne High School

By the time we leave the fitness club, we’re running late for the 3:30 p.m. game Silsby wants to catch at Cheyenne. The Northwest Cougars, who feature a couple of kids from Montana, are playing. Silsby needs to make an appearance — these are the kids who might end up at Great Falls. But traffic on I-15 is a mess and the shortcuts Riley and I suggest slow us down some more.

There’s not much to see at Cheyenne. But I learn that not everything in Montana has a picture of a grizzly bear on it, although you wouldn’t know it from the equipment bags and backpacks. And that whereas Riley is single, Silsby has a wife, Carrie, and three kids named Bennett, Barron and Brady, and that as much as he loves coming to Las Vegas during AAU week, and trying to match a name with a number, sometimes he misses his family more than he misses a big man who can run the floor.

Like when one of his kids has a birthday, and he’s away recruiting.

“That’s the worst,” Silsby says before we jam into the cream-colored rent-a-box one more time for the trip across town back to Bonanza.

Bonanza High School (again)

The sun is starting to set — sort of — as we pull into the parking lot. It has been a productive day for the Great Falls coaches. They’ve got a couple of names to go with a couple of numbers and the Edwards kid seems really interested. A kid like that, Silsby says, would give the Argos a fighting chance against Lewis & Clark.

Provided, of course, he has a winter coat.

Riley is trying to talk Silsby into having a celebratory Gatorade when a whistle blows and the screech of high-tops on freshly varnished hardwood stops for an instant.

“Nah,” Silsby says. “Better not. There’s a couple of more games I need to watch.”

Handshakes, business cards and well-wishes are exchanged. Beat Lewis & Clark, I tell Silsby.

Then he turns and heads in the direction where we heard the whistle, and the sound of kids playing defense.