If Jon Brockman plays an average game Thursday at Oregon, sometime in the second half he will become the University of Washington’s all-time rebound leader.
Brockman, who is averaging 10.9 rebounds per game this season, has 1,044 career rebounds. That is seven short of Doug Smart’s school record, established from 1957-59, before freshmen were allowed to play on varsity teams.
“I think it’s remarkable,” coach Lorenzo Romar said. “The program has been around a long time. I know that freshmen weren’t eligible (until 1972) and all that, but you look at some of those numbers back in the day and Jon is going to be the No. 1 rebounder in history. I think that’s pretty impressive.”
Brockman himself downplays the record – at least for now.
“I think it will be one of those things that’s pretty cool and gets sweeter as time goes on and I’ve left here,” he said. “I’m sure that’s when it will hit me that it really happened.”
However, he acknowledges that the rebounding record is the individual achievement that would be most satisfying to him, because it is synonymous with his game and his work ethic.
Brockman was a McDonald’s All-American at Snohomish High School.
He grabbed 215 rebounds (6.5 per game) as a UW freshman in 2005-06, 307 (9.6) as a sophomore, and 370 (11.6) as a junior. This season, he has 152 rebounds, ranking second in the Pacific-10 Conference behind Jordan Hill of Arizona.
He stands 6-foot-7, so there have been many taller Huskies and many who can jump higher. However, Romar says it’s a lot harder to find any who could match Brockman’s intensity. And Brockman prides himself on the mental part of understanding where a missed shot is likely to go.
“A lot of it is getting inside position, or if you’re really pushed under far and it’s going to be a long shot then you want to get outside position because it’s going to be a long rebound,” he said. “Just playing the angles, keeping in sight of the balls at all times – a lot of times you can judge if it’s going to be short or its going to be long just by looking at the flight of the ball: how high it is, how low it is.
“You can play the chances, you can do all that. But really you just have to go after it. You’ve got to be in that paint area ready to spring out and grab anything that pops loose.”
Huskies halfway
Washington has an 11-4 record at the halfway point of what could be a 30- or 31-game regular season (depending on whether the lost Lehigh date is made up).
“I would say we’re about close to what we would have expected,” Romar said, when asked for a midseason report. “We had a slower start than what we would have expected (2-3 after five games). But since that slow start I’ve been real pleased with our progress. ... We’re not where we were, but we’re not where we need to be.”
Fastbreaks
Romar said his team is back practicing “in a good mood” after its difficult triple-overtime loss to California on Saturday. ... Freshman guard Elston Turner has been upgraded to possible for the Oregon game on Thursday. He hasn’t played since suffering a high-ankle sprain against Morgan State on Dec. 30. ... The Huskies will fly this evening to Eugene, Ore. The team had originally planned to bus down, but the closure of Interstate 5 last week because of flooding caused the school to rethink its travel plans. UW will play Oregon at 7 p.m. Thursday and Oregon State at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Don Ruiz: 253-597-8808
blogs.thenewstribune.com/uwsports
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