Illinois assistant coach Wayne McClain didn’t make the Peoria Manual summer basketball camp connection when his son Sergio told him how Peoria Richwoods “has this really good freshman, Jamar Smith, you should go see.”
If the first eight games of the season are any indication, coach Bruce Weber has in Smith the heir to Luther Head, last season’s leading scorer and outstanding three-point shooter.
Playing an increasingly important reserve role, the Illini freshman has hit 21 of 38 three-point shots and is the Illini’s third-highest scorer at 10.1 points per game. In scoring 23 points in Monday night’s rout of Arkansas-Little Rock, he sank six three-pointers, the most for Illinois since Head made six in last spring’s NCAA semifinal victory over Louisville.
According to Wayne McClain, who became an Illinois assistant under former coach Bill Self in 2001, Smith is much more advanced than Head, the Houston Rockets’ first-round NBA draft choice, was at a comparable stage in his career.
“At this point Luther was a slasher, not a shooter,” McLain said. “He was a guy we threw alley-oops to. We used him because of his running, jumping and slashing ability. He didn’t start shooting until coach Weber got here (in 2003).”
Before becoming an assistant at Illinois, where Sergio McLain played from 1997-2001, the elder McClain was one of the state’s most successful high school coaches at Manual. After finishing his college career, Sergio had gone back to Manual to help coach the team when the freshman from rival Richwoods came across his radar screen.
When Sergio advised his father to check out Smith, it didn’t dawn on Wayne McClain that this was the same skinny kid who had come to his Manual basketball camps as a little boy.
When McClain saw Smith during Pekin’s holiday tournament, he remembered and quickly came to the realization the camper “who’d been a little ahead of the curve” had turned into a budding high school star with college basketball potential. He passed the word to Weber.
When Smith was a junior, McClain went back to the tournament at Pekin.
“I saw him score in a variety of ways,” he said. “I saw him not only make three-point shots but make pull-up jumpers. I saw him score off a steal and go down and dunk it. I saw him dribble the length of the court and score on a pull-up jumper.”
Weber scouted him, too, and loved that Richwoods coach Mike Ellis used a motion offense with an accent on the running game.
“Jamar knew how to come off screens, read things offensively and get open,” Weber said.
Smith wasn’t a national brand-name high school player, but Weber agreed with McClain that it would be a good idea to put the scholarship on the table early. For Smith it was a dream come true, and he committed to Illinois as a junior.
“Frank Williams was my favorite high school player,” Smith said. “When he came here (in 2000), I felt I was destined to follow him. I wasn’t heavily recruited, I wasn’t high on the charts, but that never affected my motivation. I wanted to prove I can play with the best.
“I was real surprised to get my opportunity so soon. My defense on the basketball has improved a lot more than my defense off the ball, but I’m making progress. That has allowed me to stay on the court a lot longer.
“People don’t think that I’m athletic and don’t think I can jump, but one day we were doing a drill and coach Weber threw the ball up and I dunked it. I think he was kind of surprised.”
Said Weber: “He’s more athletic than I ever imagined. I think he can keep expanding his game. He also has a great deal of confidence, more than I ever anticipated.
“We always knew he could shoot. He’s a pure shooter. He has a gift. He has a lift on his jump shot, and it’s so smooth. There are guys who are good spot-up shooters, but he can go up off a bounce [pass] and keep his form, and he can come off the dribble and keep his form.”
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nmilbert@tribune.com
