Stepping out from O’Bannon’s shadow
Henderson leads with steady play, dedication to team
By Scott Yamaguchi
Daily Bruin Staff
The speculation crescendoed early last April, not more than a
few weeks after UCLA had claimed it’s 11th NCAA men’s basketball
championship.
The Bruins had cruised through a 31-2 dream season with
relatively few bumps, and the smooth sail was thanks mostly to the
leadership, on and off the court, of senior starters Tyus Edney, Ed
O’Bannon and George Zidek.
But college eligibility had expired on the senior trio, and
looking ahead to the following season, Bruin head coach Jim Harrick
was faced with some rather pressing questions.
Were any of his remaining players capable of running the point
as efficiently as Edney?
Would anyone step up and anchor the middle as Zidek had?
And who in the world would fill the enormous void left by
O’Bannon, the College Player of the Year who led the team with 20.4
points and 8.3 rebounds per game?
The first two questions were answered with relative ease.
Cameron Dollar, now a junior, had filled in for an injured Edney in
the NCAA title game, and with six points, three rebounds and eight
assists, had proven that life would go on without Edney.
Zidek had had two replacements sitting on the bench, junior Ike
Nwankwo and freshman omm’A Givens, and with incoming freshman
Jelani McCoy in the picture, Harrick was able to find some
consolation in the fact that he had three candidates.
But the matter of finding a replacement for O’Bannon was not so
clear cut, and as it became more urgent with the new season
approaching, Harrick focused more and more on J.R. Henderson.
Henderson, a 6-foot-9-inch swingman, had served as the sixth man
as a freshman on the championship squad.
"I was thinking J.R. would plug into Ed’s role," Harrick said.
"We were certainly counting on him to be one of our stalwart
players."
And now, as the days of Henderson’s sophomore season wind down,
it is clear that he was the most capable of stepping into
O’Bannon’s shoes. As the Bruins prepare for tonight’s contest at
Oregon State, one of their four remaining regular season games,
Henderson leads the team in scoring and rebounding, with 15.1
points and 7.2 rebounds per game.
He ranks second in the Pacific 10 Conference in field goal
percentage with a 57.4 percent clip, and he has scored in double
figures in 23 of UCLA’s 26 games – more than any of his
teammates.
"He’s having a great year as a sophomore," Harrick said. "You’d
expect three or four times to be inconsistent, and he certainly has
fallen into that pattern, but I think he’s been our most consistent
player so far – offensively and defensively and rebounding, he’s
had a great year."
Henderson, who was highly touted out of East Bakersfield High
School because of his uncanny ball handling skills, played all five
positions on the court last season and probably could have filled
any of the positions vacated by the seniors. But down the stretch
of the championship run, he had served primarily as O’Bannon’s
understudy, and he felt most comfortable at the small forward
position.
It became glaringly obvious in the first few games of the
season, when Harrick’s worst nightmare was realized at the Maui
Invitational. The young UCLA squad opened their title defense with
a 1-2 showing at the tournament, losing to Santa Clara and
Vanderbilt in the first and third rounds, respectively, and beating
Wisconsin in the second round.
If there was any bright spot in the debacle, however, it had to
have been Henderson, who paced the Bruins with 53 points and 30
rebounds over the three games, and who always seemed to have the
ball when his team needed a basket.
Ironically, Henderson’s strong play came as a surprise to many.
He had been hyped up early in his freshman season, when his pair of
free throws with six-tenths of a second left sealed the Bruins
82-81 victory over then No. 4 Kentucky. Six games later, Henderson
had 16 points, six rebounds, three assists, and three steals
against Oregon State, his first game as a starter.
But Henderson was starting in the two-guard position, and 12
games after he earned his first start, he was replaced by fellow
freshman Toby Bailey, which was fine by him.
"I was happy coming off the bench in the first place, and
starting was just a temporary role until somebody stepped up,"
Henderson said. "I was playing two-guard, and I’m not a two-guard.
It was a temporary thing, and when I asked coach about it, he said
that he was just putting the next best player on the floor until
someone decided to fill the two-spot."
At season’s end, Henderson (9.2) had averaged just one less
point than Bailey (10.5). But Bailey turned in a spectacular
performance in the NCAA championship game, scoring 26 points with
nine rebounds, and so most of this year’s preseason hype was
focused on he and junior forward Charles O’Bannon, who was the top
returning scorer.
"I think that was very unfair to Toby," Henderson said. "They
based everything on one game, and I don’t think it was fair to him,
because they really put a lot of pressure on him. Now, he’s had a
couple of bad games and everybody’s asking, ‘what’s wrong with
him?’"
Henderson’s bad games have been few and far between. The former
member of the Pac-10 Conference All-Freshman team continues to make
a strong case for regular All-Conference honors this year, and he’s
doing it in the face of some rather questionable officiating.
"I watch tape all the time, and boy he gets fouled a lot and he
never gets the call," Harrick said. "I’ve never had a guy that gets
fouled like that a lot and doesn’t get the call."
Said Henderson: "It’s frustrating, but now they do it so much
that I’m used to it. I’m starting not to expect any calls, you just
try to play through that stuff, but it’s very frustrating to know
that when I go out there, I’m going to be at a disadvantage."
"Last year, people stayed quiet – they really didn’t say much
because there was so much seniority on the team. Now that that’s
gone, it’s crazy. It’s very crazy on the bus rides and things like
that."
Admittedly, Henderson is not yet the emotional leader that
O’Bannon was.
"I think it’s too early to take on a role like that, especially
after all that Ed did here, Player of the Year and everything," he
said."I think it’s more than a statistical thing with Ed. Just
leading the team in scoring and rebounding is probably not enough
to fill his shoes. He was a real team leader, and I don’t think I’m
at that point yet."
But if he sticks around campus long enough to use all of his
college eligibility, as he maintains that he will, then there is
little doubt that he will someday be held in the same esteem."
"He’s not very vocal, but he’s loosened up a little bit and he’s
probably as popular as any guy on the team," Harrick said. "He’s a
very serious guy – there’s no bologna, he doesn’t horse around, he
comes and plays every day in practice."
He ranks second in the Pacific 10 Conference in field goal
percentage with a 57.4 percent clip, and he has scored in double
figures in 23 of UCLA’s 26 games.
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
According to forward J.R. Henderson, the UCLA men’s basketball
team has "a lot of frustration to let out."
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