Men's basketball

Calm after the storm

After a year as coach, Bibby now has team on track

By Edward de la Fuente
Assistant Sports Editor

When Henry Bibby looked around and saw smiles everywhere, he knew he had made it.
The entire team, as well as the athletic department and alumni, were gathered to watch the NCAA's annual men's basketball selection show at the end of last season. And when USC's name flashed on the screen as a tournament team for the first time since 1992, Bibby's pride for the school swelled, perhaps like it never had before for an ex-UCLA basketball star.
The same held true for Stais Boseman, who couldn't wipe the smile off his face. Neither could Rodrick Rhodes, nor David Crouse, nor Jaha Wilson. The four players, all seniors and all -- with the exception of Rhodes when he played at Kentucky -- having never played in the Big Dance, finally felt redemption for what they had been through.
The moment is Bibby's favorite in his two years at USC. "Seeing the smiles on the faces of those four guys, people that have never tasted the honey of success finally getting to taste that...I'll never forget that," he said.
After last year's appearance in the NCAA Tournament, the USC men's basketball team enters this season with a sense of calm after weathering a storm that saw two coaching changes and a slew of player transfers, both in and out, over the previous three seasons.
Bibby took over as the Trojans' head coach on Feb. 7, 1996, replacing the fired Charlie Parker on an interim basis in a controversial, and to many, suspicious move. USC proceeded to lose its final nine games that year, which made it all the more surprising when Bibby was named the permanent head coach that summer.
Now, with a full season behind him, the Trojans are no longer Parker's team, nor previous coach George Raveling's team. Bibby has an agenda for his team, and he makes sure his players know it.
"My guys know (what I want)," he said. "We always talk about it. I ask them, `How are you doing in your classes?' We want you to play basketball, but you've got to go to school if you want to play for Henry Bibby. I'm tough that way.
"I don't pull any punches. I tell them exactly the way it is."
***
Philip Von Backstrom, a 7-foot-2 center out of Western Nebraska Junior College, sat in Henry Bibby's office in late September as Bibby told him exactly the way it was.
Von Backstrom, one of the Trojans' six recruits during the offseason, had come to USC intending to redshirt, but Western Nebraska Head Coach Dave Campbell said problems arose from the moment he arrived on campus.
"We were told that he was going to redshirt," Campbell says. "I guarantee you, he wasn't going to redshirt."
Other factors took their toll on Von Backstrom as well. He had hoped to experience life in a dormitory and eat in a dining hall, but he was denied that. He had been told that he was to receive a stipend check, but never saw it. "They just didn't follow up on some things with Philip," Campbell says. "They didn't do what they said they were going to do."
His new teammates, realizing he would be the tallest player on the team, began telling him that he needed to play for them immediately.
"Philip got scared by that," Bibby says. "He came into (my office) and said, `Coach, I want to redshirt.' I told him I had no problem redshirting him. But I wanted to leave the door open. I told him, `If you play well during preseason, if you want to play, I'd love to have you play. We'll make the decision once we get to November.'"
That was the last conversation Bibby had with Von Backstrom, who returned to Western Nebraska two days later.
"He got very uncomfortable with what was happening over there," Campbell says. "Ultimately he decided he just wanted to go home."
The split between USC and Von Backstrom was less than amicable, a fact that Bibby gave away during the team's media day on Oct. 14. In referring to his departed recruit, he called Von Backstrom "Jeff."
"Phil," senior forward Gary Williams said, correcting him.
Replied Bibby: "That's how important he was to us, huh?"
The whole situation still bothers Bibby. "There's no reason to leave this school," he says. "Philip should be here to get an education. You can go anywhere to play basketball. Is Philip looking for the same thing I'm looking for? No, not necessarily.
"If Philip is unhappy, he should be unhappy because of academics, not because of basketball. And that's why this whole thing is out of whack -- because everyone wants to be a pro basketball player."
***
Henry Bibby's debut as USC head coach came on Feb. 8, 1996, one day after Parker's firing. The Trojans found themselves in Stanford's Maples Pavilion, where they were to play the No. 25 Cardinal. The problem was, nobody wanted to play.
The dismissal of Parker, who was in his first year after Raveling retired due to injuries suffered in a car accident, came as a surprise to everyone. Parker himself admitted later that he had no clue it was coming. The players definitely had no clue it was coming.
"It was very confusing," said Cameron Murray, a sophomore guard for the Trojans that year who is now playing at Louisville. "Deep down, everybody wanted Coach Parker to stay. A lot of players knew a lot of things were going on that other people didn't know. It just seemed like everything was falling apart."
The team did go out that night and play, but fell behind 45-33 at the half and lost 99-69. Two nights later, the Trojans struggled again and were routed by California, 85-69.
Bibby, suddenly at the helm of a ship sinking fast, was caught in the middle.
"To take over (with nine games left) in the season was really tough, because Charlie and I had different philosophies on some things," he said. "It was Charlie's team and all guys that Charlie recruited. "I was trying to turn the heads of guys whose heads had been turned by a different coach."
The problems continued. Center Avondre Jones was suspended for the first four games of Bibby's tenure after leaving the team before its Bay Area trip. When he returned, he denied that his reason for going AWOL was because of the coaching change.
Murray, who Bibby had been bringing off the bench and whose minutes were decreasing with every game, saw his grades slip and decided to leave the team with five games remaining in the season to focus on his studies.
"I told Bibby I wasn't in the right frame of mind because I wasn't thinking about basketball while I was out there," Murray said. "He asked me if I wanted to try coming off the bench, and I agreed to it. At the time it was the best decision for both of us."
USC stumbled to an 11-19 record, and Bibby finished 0-9 as interim coach. Less than a week after the team's last game, the "interim" label was officially removed, ending any uncertainty about Bibby's job security.
"When I look at it now, at the time I was putting in my philosophy and doing the things I wanted to do," he said. "If it didn't work, it didn't work, but those were the things I wanted to do. And if I get the job, I get it, and if I don't, I don't."
When Bibby knew the job was his, his first concern was the permanent loss of his guard. Murray decided the pressures of playing in the same town where his brother, Tracy, starred at UCLA and his cousin, Lamond, started for the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers, were too much and decided to transfer.
"Every time he went out, everyone in L.A. knew who he was, knew who his brother was, knew who his cousin was," Bibby said. "He was put on a pedestal. There was a certain degree of excellence he had to achieve every night. And I think there was a lot of pressure on him."
Murray, who was recruited and played his first season under Raveling, ultimately felt he couldn't play in a program that had been torn apart by two coaching changes and was enveloped in instability.
"We were never together as a team," Murray said. "I lived out in Marina del Rey, and everybody else lived in other parts of the city. The only time we ever saw each other was at practice or at games. Here (at Louisville) we all live in the same dorm. It wasn't my type of basketball over there."
***
Not much was expected of Henry Bibby at the start of the 1996-97 season. He had a new addition in Rhodes, who had sat out a year after transferring from Kentucky, but the team that ended the previous season on a 10-game skid was, by and large, still intact.
Quickly, the new head coach established for his players who the boss was. Bibby suspended three starters, Rhodes, Boseman and Gary Williams, for violating team rules before an early-season game against Ohio State -- and won, 79-68.
The next month, just before an important conference matchup with No. 21 Stanford, Wilson was suspended for walking out on a team meeting. The results were different this time, though; the Trojans lost, 85-70.
In laying down the law, a trend he had begun with Jones from his first week as interim coach, Bibby not only brought discipline to the team but also did what many speculated Parker didn't do and got fired for.
"Bibby's back was against the wall (the first year)," Murray said. "He had to do what he had to do to make the team win or to make them better in future. And he decided to bring in discipline."
"It wasn't tough to suspend guys," Bibby said. "My thinking was, you have to go to school. If you don't want to go to class, then you can't play basketball. Everybody has rules and laws that you go by, and if you don't abide by those, then there's a problem. So we feel that when we make a decision, it's the right one for the university and for the young player that's involved."
Wilson returned a week later for what would turn out to be one of the high points of the season for USC. Despite limited action from Rhodes, who was nursing a knee injury, the Trojans defeated No. 7 and eventual national champion Arizona at home, 75-62. The team would go 9-6 the rest of the season on its way to the NCAAs.
Then the offseason brought more change. Five new recruits were brought in. One, Von Backstrom, changed his mind and left. Guard Danny Walker, who missed the second half of last season with a knee injury, transferred to New Mexico State without warning at the end of August.
Bibby believes Walker felt threatened by the presence of one of the recruits, point guard Kevin Augustine.
"Danny Walker left because there was another guy working with him, this AAU guy, who said that he wanted Danny to be a starting point guard and to play in the NBA," Bibby said. "And the only way he'd get into the NBA was to be a starting point guard. Well, Danny would have played point guard here. But, I guess, with Augustine here and Gary Johnson coming back, Danny felt he wouldn't beat these guys out.
"I want guys that'll meet the challenge of competition. I want people that want to be here and get a good education. So that's my thinking, and if guys want to leave, I don't have a problem with it."
***
With all the expectations in place that weren't there last season, Bibby knows there'll be more attention on USC this year.
The four senior starters from last season -- Rhodes, Boseman, Crouse and Wilson -- are gone. The smiles have gone their separate ways, with Rhodes now playing in the NBA for the Houston Rockets.
In their place are the four recruits. Three of them, guards Augustine and Jeff Trepagnier, and forward Greg Lakey, are freshmen. The fourth, forward Adam Spanich, is a junior transfer from Marshalltown Community College in Iowa. Each are poised to make an impact in his first season at USC.
"We brought in four quality kids this year that want to play basketball," Bibby said. "But also we brought in four kids that want to go to school too. So it's not a one-way street here."
Add that to the six returnees from last season -- guards Johnson, Elias Ayuso and Ken Sims, and forwards Williams, Jarvis Turner and Anthony White -- and optimism abounds in the Trojans' camp.
"I expect us to play hard every night and I expect us to not make any mistakes," Bibby said. "I wish I could talk about the wins and losses, I don't know. I feel we're going to work hard and be focused."
The Trojan players know what could happen if they don't stay focused. On Henry Bibby's team, you follow Henry Bibby's rules. And finally, it's clear that the Trojans are Henry Bibby's team.