The occasion was Midnight Madness, a holy day of obligation at the University of Kansas, and Quentin Richardson and several other high school All-Americans were making their official visits to the campus.
It was the first day of basketball practice for Division I teams last year, and Kansas, like many other schools, had opened its basketball arena to allow fans a first glimpse of their heroes at the stroke of midnight. The atmosphere was electric, full of noise and anticipation for the obligatory 30-victory season, and as a recruiting tool, it was better than slick brochures and really cool uniforms.
Richardson walked into Allen Fieldhouse at 2 p.m., or 10 hours before that first practice was to begin, and was surprised to see people already claiming seats. He was even more surprised later when they started chanting his name.
“It was real exciting,” he says.
Richardson will walk onto that same floor Thursday, and chances are he won’t hear his name being chanted, unless it’s followed by an epithet. Not long after making that trip, at the end of which he told coach Roy Williams the chances of him signing with the Jayhawks were 80-20, he flip-flopped and signed with DePaul.
“He even helped me one night get it up to 85 about two weeks before the decision,” Williams says, laughing.
The Blue Demons face Kansas in a nationally televised game, and both Richardson and Williams can’t help but think a bit about what might have been. Mostly though, Kansas fans will continue to try to figure out what happened, starting with conspiracy theories about the former Whitney Young star and working their way down.
Williams says he has heard the insinuations about DePaul’s standout recruiting class–that a sagging program doesn’t suddenly get a Richardson, a Lance Williams and a Bobby Simmons simply by luck or hard work or proximity–but says he saw no hint of impropriety.
If he had, he says, he would have turned in the Blue Demons to the NCAA faster than a three-second violation. He is not called “the Sheriff” for nothing.
“It was a disheartening thing because I really thought we were going to get him,” Williams says. “It changed drastically, and it changed drastically very quickly. I had no evidence, no inclination whatsoever that anything was going on. And I’ve heard the whispers and rumors too.
“I’ve been known to, if I really felt that something illegal was going on, to turn people in to the NCAA. But I didn’t have anything to hang my hat on. I really thought he and his family all of sudden realized that they would have been nine hours away by car.”
That, Richardson says, was exactly the case. He had returned from his Kansas visit ready to be a Jayhawk, but his sister reminded him that not every day in Lawrence, Kan., would be like Midnight Madness, that there might be some Morning Monotony.
As the days went on, more things came into focus and Kansas got blurrier from such a distance. DePaul, he says, looked sharp.
“I got a chance to stay home with my family,” Richardson says. “That was one of the biggest things for me. Whenever I go out of town, I can have a lot of fun, but I want to be home. So I knew I’d be feeling that way about the whole situation.”
Richardson, Williams (Julian) and Simmons (Simeon) all are Public League products, and anywhere else it might have seemed logical that the three would choose to stay home. But by opting to sign with DePaul, they broke down a barrier of ill will that had been built up between the university and many Chicago-area high school basketball programs.
To this day, some Public League coaches believe that once DePaul had built its program on the backs of Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it purposely turned away from the city and began recruiting out of state.
“They did what they wanted to do,” Simeon coach Bob Hambric says. “I don’t think they were really that crazy about getting Chicago-area players. I think they were in love with East Coast and West Coast players for the mere fact that they wouldn’t have to be bothered by the coaches in this area questioning what they were doing. They pretty much disrespected not just the Public League, but the Chicagoland coaches.
“No one had to get any type of (boycott) together. I think people individually saw what they saw and understood what was happening. I don’t think anybody said, `Don’t go.’ But you try to direct kids to places where they’re going to take care of your players, in terms of making sure they’re successful. I think they thought what they had going was going to go on forever.”
It didn’t. From 1992 through 1997, the Blue Demons went 63-79. During that time, coach Joey Meyer was able to recruit Farragut star Ronnie Fields, but even that went up in smoke. Fields didn’t qualify academically.
“From what I understand, they’re a little bit more flexible in their academic policy since they’ve had the new coach in, that part of the agreement of (Pat) Kennedy coming over was that they had to ease up some,” Farragut coach Will Nelson says. “At least give him the chance–not to get a whole bunch of Prop. 48 kids–but to take a chance on a kid. He’ll say, `Give me a shot on this kid, and I’ll go to bat for this kid.’ They seem to be pretty much behind Kennedy, whereas they weren’t behind Joey before.
“So there’s a little ray of hope there.”
DePaul Athletic Director Bill Bradshaw says the school has not eased its academic requirements for athletes since Kennedy arrived before last season.
Nelson says DePaul once made a “half-hearted effort” to recruit the Public League, but coaches say that all changed when DePaul hired Kennedy. Kennedy hired former King star Tracy Dildy as an assistant, and one of the first things Dildy and former Cincinnati assistant Larry Harrison did was begin calling Public League coaches.
“Kennedy made the effort, and they came to see me several times this summer just to try to explain what they were trying to do,” Hambric says. “Not that I had anything to do with Simmons’ decision to go to DePaul. But I didn’t tell him not to go either. At least they made themselves visible.
“Maybe it’s because they’re new. Maybe after they get fat they’ll decide, `We don’t have to worry about them. We’ve got people coming from other places.’ “
Not if Chicago continues to produce the type of high school student-athletes it produced last year, though that’s a big if. That so many great players were eligible in their first year was unusual.
The success of Richardson, Simmons and Williams at DePaul will help DePaul’s recruiting. The Blue Demons already have a commitment from Steven Hunter, a 7-foot center from Proviso East.
If there’s a good reason to stay home, some athletes will embrace it, as Richardson did.
“At the end, I think the distance and being able to play close to home was a huge factor for him,” Kansas’ Williams says. “That’s not to take anything away from DePaul’s recruiting. I’m not trying to do that. A lot of youngsters will say distance is not a factor, and then when it comes to crunch time, all of a sudden distance is more of a factor than they thought it was going to be.”
In the end, at a press conference at a downtown restaurant, Richardson announced he was choosing DePaul. After meeting with reporters, he informed Williams and Kennedy of his decision by telephone.
Telling Roy Williams no after saying yes in so many words might seem like an intimidating experience for a teenager, but not for Richardson.
“He told me from the beginning that regardless of what my decision was, he wasn’t going to do anything in the future to hurt me,” Richardson says. “He’s well-respected among the NBA coaches. He said as long as I was straight up with him, he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, that he was still going to love the way I play regardless of whether I went there or not. He told me to just be truthful.”
Sometimes the truth hurts.
“It was not a painful process. It was a painful ending,” Williams says. “I really thought we were going to get him. I really thought he was the best perimeter player in high school basketball. So far, what he’s shown is that that’s a pretty good assessment.
“He should own the city before long.”
