On the Court With... Shaquille O'Neal (4 page)

Shaquille tossed off his warm-up jacket and jogged onto the court. The crowd roared its approval. Shaquille knew he had to
play smart. But at the same time, he knew he had to score.

Cole moved the ball upcourt as Shaquille tried to get in position near the basket. But instead of forcing his way in close
and taking a chance on committing a foul, he stopped a step short, eight or ten feet from the hoop. He put up his hand and
called for a pass.

A teammate lofted the ball over the defense. Shaquille went up and came down with the pass. The defense scrambled to block
Shaquille's path to the basket. For most of the game, he had driven hard to the hoop for dunks.

But now Shaquille had another plan. Instead of driving to the basket, he spun quickly, jumped, and fired up a soft jumper.
Clarksville didn't have time to react.

Swish!
Cole now led 56–53!

Shaquille wasn't finished. The next time down the court, he got the ball again. Instead of shooting, he
faked a shot, drew the defense toward him, and then threw a sweet pass to a teammate for a layup. When Clarksville tried to
respond, Shaquille intercepted a pass and started the fast break, leading to another two points for Cole.

Clarksville was becoming desperate. They raced down the court and hurriedly threw up a shot.

Up, up, up went Shaquille, his arm reaching for the ball at the top of its arc.

Slam!
He rejected the shot to a teammate. He was quickly fouled and sank the two foul shots. Moments later, the game ended. Cole
had won, 68–60. They were state champs!

Shaquille had never been happier in his entire life. This, too, was a feeling he wanted to remember.

Shaquille could hardly wait to begin college. But he still had a little basketball to play before leaving for LSU.

After the high school season ended, Shaquille was invited to play in several national tournaments for the best high school
players in the country. If there was any doubt whether Shaquille was ready for college basketball, Shaquille's performances
proved that he was. At both the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic and the McDonald's All American Game, Shaquille was a star. The
McDonald's game was broadcast on television, and fans all over the country got their first look at Shaquille. From his performance,
some college basketball observers believed that LSU had a chance to win the national championship in the 1989–90 season. And
Shaquille hadn't even started school yet!

Expectations were high when he arrived in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, to begin his collegiate career. But no one's expectations were higher than those of Shaquille himself. As
important as basketball was to him, his education was equally important. His father had made sure he understood that.

Whenever anyone talked about Shaquille's potential to play professionally, Phil Harrison quickly turned the conversation to
Shaquille's potential as a human being, saying, “Money is materialistic. What Shaquille needs is spiritualistic. We want him
to get a good education so he doesn't need basketball.”

Shaquille understood that his basketball career could end in an instant because of an injury or some other unforeseen accident.
If that happened, he would need his education to succeed in life.

Fortunately, he brought good study habits with him to LSU. While many of his freshman classmates spent their first few months
in college running around and partying, Shaquille tended to stay in his dorm room, doing his work, listening to music, and
playing video games for fun. Despite the fact that he was nearly seven feet tall and rapidly approaching 300 pounds, he was
still only seventeen years old. He wasn't old enough to get into the nightclubs and discos that ringed the LSU campus.

The whole campus was excited for basketball season to begin. Most of the preseason polls predicted that LSU would be one of
the four or five best teams in the country. Some already had LSU ranked as high as number two.

Shaquille was a big reason for that, but not the only one. The previous season LSU guard Chris Jackson had been one of the
top scorers in the country. In several games he scored more than 50 points. His specialty was the three-pointer, the long
jump shot from more than eighteen feet away from the basket. When he got hot, he was almost unstoppable.

And although Shaquille was expected to provide LSU with rebounding and scoring from inside, he would have some help. Another
first-year player, Stanley Roberts, was almost as big as Shaquille. He had been the best big man in high school when Shaquille
was a junior at Cole, but Roberts had to sit out his first season at LSU because of Proposition 48. He'd since proved that
he could do collegiate work and was now eligible to play. Potentially, LSU had three of the best players in the country.

Coach Brown knew that his toughest task would be to make sure his team played together. If they did, LSU had a good chance
to meet the high expectations
everyone had for them. But if they didn't, Brown knew that LSU Tiger fans would quickly become impatient.

Brown made his first important decision in practice before the start of the season. He decided that he would play Shaquille
and Roberts at the same time in what was referred to as a “Twin Towers” lineup rather than have the two share the center position.
Roberts, who was two years older than Shaquille, was the more experienced and polished player. Brown felt that playing with
Roberts would help Shaquille's game.

Tiger fans got their first look at Shaquille in the annual preseason intrasquad game. Nearly 12,000 fans turned out to watch
the glorified scrimmage.

While the fans were thrilled with the contest, a high-scoring game in which the two teams combined for more than 200 points,
Coach Brown wasn't quite so happy. “We were rusty,” he said afterward. “Our execution wasn't as good as it should have been.”

Although Shaquille scored almost 30 points, grabbed 18 rebounds, and blocked 5 shots, neither team seemed very interested
in playing defense and players on each squad played more one-on-one
basketball than they did team basketball. However, it was early in the season. There was time to improve.

LSU began the regular season in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT), a tourney that included some of the best teams
in the country. The Tigers were the highest-ranked team in the tournament and were favored to win. They opened up against
Southern Mississippi. LSU was expected to win big.

But everyone seemed to have forgotten that even the best high school players need some time to adjust to the rigors of college
basketball. For Shaquille, foul trouble again proved to be his greatest obstacle.

Although he'd learned to stay out of foul trouble in high school, collegiate basketball was a whole different game. Referees
allowed more contact, but Shaquille had a hard time figuring out just how much more. He was quickly slapped with three fouls
in the first seven and a half minutes of the game. Brown had to put him on the bench.

Although LSU hung on to win, 91–80, Brown wasn't pleased with his team, and Shaquille was disappointed in himself.

“I got frustrated,” he admitted later in regard to his foul trouble, “but it won't happen again.” He finished
with only 10 points and 5 rebounds in 16 minutes of play.

But despite his determination to improve, Shaquille continued to struggle. The Tigers lost their next game in the tournament
to Kansas as Shaquille again got in early foul trouble.

Brown realized he had to make a change. His decision to have Roberts and O'Neal both in the starting lineup didn't seem to
be working. The Tigers weren't passing the ball very much, as every player on the court seemed to be trying to make sure he
got his share of scoring opportunities. Shaquille wasn't the problem, but Brown decided to temporarily remove him from the
starting lineup.

Shaquille was disappointed, but he understood. The object was to win. And Brown told him that he planned to play him nearly
as much as if he were a starter. He just wanted his team to get into a good tempo at the start of the game and for Shaquille
to avoid picking up quick fouls.

The strategy worked. Coming off the bench helped Shaquille settle down, and he began to play much better. Despite all the
work he had done with Coach More in high school, Shaquille was having some trouble adjusting to playing against players his
own size. If he wasn't in position to dunk the ball, he had a hard time getting off his shot. He still had a lot to learn
about playing center.

Once the Tigers began regular-season play in the Southeast Conference (SEC), it became clear that although they were a very
good team, they weren't a great team. Experienced, disciplined teams gave them trouble. Some people thought that Chris Jackson
shot too much and that when Shaquille and Stanley Roberts were both on the court at the same time, each let up a little and
didn't play his best.

Still, there were times when Shaquille dominated and gave Tiger fans a glimpse of the future. One game against Loyola Marymount
was particularly memorable.

Paced by the nation's leading scorer, Hank Gathers, Loyola was the highest-scoring team in the country. They loved to run
and shoot the three-pointer. Their whole offense was built around taking as many shots as fast as possible. It wasn't a league
game, so Coach Brown let his players play with a little more freedom than usual. The result was one of the most remarkable
games in the history of college basketball.

For forty minutes of regulation play plus five minutes
of overtime, the two teams went at each other at a furious pace. The shooters from both teams were hot, but at halftime LSU
led, 72–58.

Loyola came roaring back in the second half. As they did, Shaquille showed that he was beginning to adjust to the college
game. He noticed that LSU's outside shooters were all hot, so he focused on rebounding and defense, particularly when Hank
Gathers drove into the paint to try to score. Early in the game Gathers had had some success against Shaquille. When he drove
to the basket, Shaquille would go out to meet him. But Gathers was too quick for him and was able to slash by for some easy
baskets.

Late in the game, that began to change. As Shaquille recalled later, “I watched some tapes last night. Instead of pushing
out and going after him, I just stayed back and put my arms up when he got the ball. I started getting some rebounds and blocking
shots after that.”

That was an understatement. As LSU hung on to win by the incredible score of 148–141, Shaquille blocked 12 shots, pulled down
24 rebounds, and chipped in 20 points.

Unfortunately, such heroic efforts by Shaquille
and his teammates were not the norm in Shaquille's freshman season. Although the Tigers finished the regular season a respectable
22–7, they lost in the first round of the SEC tournament. They managed to win their first game in the National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament, but then lost to SEC rival Georgia Tech in the second round. Their season was over.

Although Shaquille was disappointed with his team's record, his freshman year in college was a success. He averaged only 13
points a game for the Tigers on the basketball court, but off the court he maintained a solid 3.0 grade average, a B. He had
learned a lot about himself as both a basketball player and a person and was already looking forward to his sophomore year.

That summer Shaquille got a job doing construction work in Baton Rouge to earn some extra money. And after working all day
in the hot sun, he would play basketball for two or three hours and work out with weights, focusing on his calf muscles to
improve his leaping ability.

When LSU began practice for the 1991–92 season, the change in Shaquille was dramatic. He was
huge
, almost 300 pounds of solid muscle. His biceps
and forearms bulged and his legs were like tree trunks. His vertical leap had improved dramatically. From a standing start,
Shaquille could jump up and touch a spot on the backboard twelve and a half feet off the ground. As Coach Brown said later,
“I've never coached an athlete who's improved so much from one year to the next.”

LSU needed every bit of improvement Shaquille could muster, for they were a different team. Rather than a team of stars, they
were a team of role players with one star — Shaquille. Chris Jackson had decided to turn professional and had been drafted
by the NBA. Stanley Roberts had left school as well and was playing professionally in Spain. Shaquille was expected to pick
up the slack. In recognition of that, Coach Brown named Shaquille as one of two team captains. The message was clear: it was
Shaquille's team. They would go just as far as he could take them. Brown told him, “You have to be the man.”

Coach Brown even changed the team's offensive strategy to take advantage of Shaquille's remarkable improvement. Instead of
trying to run the fast break at every opportunity, Brown installed a half-court game. The object was to get the ball to Shaquille.
Shaquille's success at either getting the ball into the basket or passing to an open teammate would determine just how far
the Tigers would go in the season.

The Tigers got off to a quick start. O'Neal rapidly adjusted to his new role — scoring, rebounding, and blocking shots at
will. LSU quickly racked up a series of wins against overmatched opponents. Then, just a few weeks before the start of league
play, they faced the Arizona Wildcats, who were ranked number one in some polls. The deep and experienced Wildcats featured
the best frontcourt in the country. The game, which was televised nationally, would provide a dramatic measure of just how
much Shaquille had improved.

From the opening tip-off, he dominated both ends of the court. After he blocked a few of their shots early in the game, the
Wildcats almost gave up on taking the ball to the basket. And on offense Shaquille was unstoppable. Arizona was powerless
when he decided to take the ball to the basket. When he found his path blocked, he passed with pinpoint accuracy to his wide-open
teammates. On offense and defense, he pulled down almost every rebound.