With these skills, the box is unlocked - Rising star: Craig Smith - college basketball

Basketball Digest, May, 2003 by Tom Kertes

THE KID FROM THE LEFT COAST wanted to stay on the Left Coast. "You know, the weather," Craig Smith says, his warm smile heating up the below-freezing Big Apple night after his Boston College team thumped St. John's 81-63 for its seventh win in eight games. "And Mom. I really wanted her to see me play."

But La-La Land was completely out to lunch on this LA native. Too many bean sprouts, perhaps. Of the major-majors, only Oregon State offered a scholarship to the 6'7", 275-pound Smith. "But then-coach [Ritchie] McKay took it back," Smith says, "He said I was kind of pudgy." Ouch.

On Smith's Fairfax High School team, everyone was looking at Evan Burns. In Smith's immediate area, all were ogling Hassan Adams. "I was invited to one camp, total," Smith says. "And everyone was looking right through me as if I didn't exist." Not an easy thing to do with such an ode to burliness, natch.

Well, Adams is averaging a solid 12 points for Arizona. And Burns is burning up the floor for eight ppg at struggling San Diego State. But Smith is bulking his way around the Big East as if there were no opponents on the floor, leading the league in field goal percentage while ranking in the top 10 in both scoring and rebounding at around 20 and eight per game. And he's far from satisfied. "I should be doing a double-double," says Smith, whose searing desire to improve has burned off much of the pudge. "Next year I will, I promise you."

Smith, a five-time Big East Rookie of the Week, would be the conference's Rookie of the Year in a runaway if it wasn't for a certain Carmelo Anthony. Shoot, he may be the Big East Rookie of the Year even with the one-foot-in-the-NBA Syracuse superstar in the picture. This from a kid who could barely get a whiff from Cal-State Fullerton and San Jose State.

"They gave me scholarship offers, [but they were] kind of lukewarm," Smith says. "UCLA called me--once, I think USC called, then never called back."

The Era of No Sleepers? "A lot of coaches from the West Coast have phoned me and told me, "We missed one, Coach," says Fairfax mentor Harvey Kitani. No kidding, guys: with the "`Zona-then-zero" Pac-10 at its feeblest in several eons, that may be the understatement of the millennium.

The thing is, Smith may look like a box, but he's quite a package. "Size, skill, quickness, and power," BC's Al Skinner, the only power-conference coach with the powers of perception to see what Smith had to offer, shakes his head in awe. "He's really a unique player."

Smith, who sees himself as a "combination of Charles Barkley and Antoine Walker," flies around on the floor like a guy a hundred pounds lighter, is lithe enough to handle guards, and has a perimeter-plus-power combo gig that's shocking.

Skinner seeing his talent is only slightly less so. Academically, BC is one tough school to get into--so the coach had to improvise. As Skinner did with Troy Bell (the pro-bound superguard was wanted by a total of no one out of high school) or, at Rhode Island, with Cuttino Mobley (ditto).

"Coach Skinner took an enormous chance on me," Smith says. "I'll forever thank him for that."

Thanks are also due to Mom, who the Big Guy acknowledges incessantly. Linda Christian, an administrative assistant at UCLA Medical Center and a single mother of four, was "quite a street player herself," according to Smith. "She was the first to turn me on to the game and kept on doing everything--taking on extra jobs, whatever--so I could focus on my ball." Then, in the fourth grade, Smith started to play endless one-on-ones with a foot-shorter friend. "That's how I got my quicks and my handle," he smiles. "I had to, to beat him."

The top field goal shooting and third-best scoring (to Anthony and St. Peter's Keydren Clark) freshman in the nation has been beyond instrumental in the Eagles' stunning turnaround this season; after beginning the year as champion underachievers, BC embarked on a major sizzle, making a powerful run for an NCAA Tournament spot. "Even with Troy and all, if we didn't have Craig we'd be nowhere," Skinner says. "He is our inside game. I mean, the kid never misses a shot."

Unlike all the coaches, on both coasts, who missed their shot at him. Does Smith have some "I'll show you" burning inside each time he steps on the floor? "Nah," the Big Guy says with a shy smile. "Well, yeah. Maybe. Just a little."