Brett Casey leaves basketball team to focus on baseball

By Cliff Kirkpatrick
Corvallis Gazette-Times

After a frantic game of last-minute musical chairs, the Oregon State men’s basketball team roster is set for the coming season with two departures and one addition.

It started when walk-on point guard Brett Casey quit to concentrate on baseball. He tried to play both sports last year, seeing significant time for the basketball team because of injuries to players ahead of him.

The Crescent Valley High alum missed much of the baseball season because of an overlap in seasons, and redshirted with the team.

After playing summer baseball, coach Jay John said Casey decided baseball is his sport.

His departure left redshirt freshman Josh Tarver as the only point guard on the team. He’s considered the starter, but a preseason broken foot took him out of action last year.

“It’s pretty clear with Brett’s decision to move to baseball that creates some instability at the position,” John said. “He and Josh would have split the 40 minutes at point guard. I always know that Wesley (Washington) can play point guard, but I don’t want him to play point guard. It’s not what he is. If he’s freed up to do his deal, he’s a nuisance to defend. If he’s a point guard he has to change the way he thinks.”

Making the situation worse was incoming freshman guard Calvin Haynes wasn’t going to be academically eligible, forcing a redshirt season. Haynes is someone who could play either guard position.

Haynes and John decided he should attend South Kent Prep School in Connecticut. Haynes can become eligible there, play basketball and come to OSU with his eligibility clock starting in 2007.

“I didn’t want him spending a year redshirting, trying to be eligible,” John said. “We all agreed it didn’t make sense to do it that way.”

When that happened, John asked his coaches to help find another point guard. Assistant coach Jeff Reinert spent time in Europe recruiting and had a tape on Vojin Sivlar from Smederevo, Serbia.

The 6-foot-2, 165-pounder turned out to be the best available. He’s a 20-year-old who played for KK Smederevo in the Serbia & Montenegro “B” league. Sivlar averaged 18 points, five assists and three rebounds in 2005-06, and graduated from the Sport Grammar School in Belgrade in 2005.

“None of us had seen him play in person,” John said. “We saw him on tape. We felt we were in the position to make the best guesstimate we can because we have instability in the position from a year ago. If I had a crystal ball and knew Josh Tarver wasn’t going to get hurt, it’s a different story.”

John recruited by video and not in person during August due to NCAA rules. Since the Beavers were done recruiting for the coming season they didn’t have a long list of athletes to fall back on.

“The caliber of basketball over there is really good,” John said. “There will be some adjustment issues, but he has a good basketball IQ and a talent level that satisfies me enough that he can play at this level and can compete with Josh.”

John’s roster problems now turn to the 2007-08 season. He plans to bring Haynes back, signing him again in November. At this point that finishes OSU’s recruiting because there’s only one scholarship of 13 available after Kyle Jeffers graduates.

However, John promises more signings for November, but won’t say how he’s going to work the numbers. That could mean some players with eligibility left will graduate, move on and leave scholarships open.

“The rest of the things that go on in recruiting for the roster we end up with you are going to have to wait and see how the puzzle fits together,” John said. “You can do all the addition and subtraction you want. The one thing I know is Calvin Haynes won’t be the only player we sign this year.”