Oregon State rookies have been thrown into the fire

By Brooks Hatch
Gazette-Times reporter

Don’t believe everything you read or hear.

There are no freshmen on the Oregon State women’s basketball team.

The five first-year players who came to Corvallis in July for summer conditioning and summer school have received mid-season field promotion from head coach LaVonda Wagner. They’re now brevet sophomores.

“I told them they couldn’t be freshmen anymore,” Wagner said.

And in this program, what Wagner says, goes.

Period.

So forget the word “freshmen” before their names in the media guide and statistical releases. Forwards Stacey Nichols, Julie Lomax and Whitney Champlin and guards Julie Futch and Jasmine Smith are playing much older than might ordinarily be expected, they’re no longer tenderfoots.

You grow up quickly on vacations away from friends and family; when weekends are road trips to Stanford, Arizona State and Los Angeles; when you play perennial national powers such as Texas, or visit the Heartland of Iowa and Nebraska in the dead of December.

They’ll be tested again this week in OSU’s toughest Gill Coliseum games this season.

The Beavers (8-15, 3-11) face Pacific-10 Conference leader and ninth-ranked Stanford (13-1, 21-4) at 7 tonight. On Saturday they tangle with No. 22 California (19-6, 9-5) at 7 p.m. in their home finale.

There have been some growing pains, self-doubt and lonely moments. That’s customary for all college freshmen, not just those pushed to the limit by a demanding, exacting coach and challenged by 20 hours a week of practice, video review, weight lifting and study halls.

But the five freshmen have made their mark. Lomax and Nichols have started every game; Lomax is a shoo-in for some kind of Pac-10 all-freshmen honors. Futch and Smith are the first subs, and Futch (34) and Champlin (14) each established career highs in minutes against the imposing Sun Devils this past Saturday in a 78-63 loss on ASU’s Senior Day.

In a sense, they’re OSU’s “Junction Girls,” minus the accompanying physical and mental abuse suffered by the 1954 Texas A&M football team, the famous “Junction Boys” mistreated by former Aggies’ football coach Bear Bryant during a brutal preseason training camp in isolated, Godforsaken Junction, Texas.

However, like the tough 20-odd Aggies who survived that crucible, these five freshmen and the others on Wagner’s first two Beavers teams have changed the culture of the women’s program, which hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament or seriously challenged for a Pac-10 championship since the 1995-96 season.

They’re adding to the foundation started by a senior-laden 2006 unit, which exceeded all expectations by finishing seventh in the Pac-10 and advancing to the second round of the Women’s NIT. They’re setting the stage for the second set of Wagner’s recruits, who will join them this July for another round of offseason conditioning and academics.

They welcomed the test. Wagner’s high standards and expectations are clearly spelled out in recruiting; everyone knew what was expected of them, on the court and in the classroom, when they signed on.

“She’s always so open, she wants to know how can she help us best,” said Lomax, a 5-foot-11 forward from Potomac, Md., of Wagner. “She understands that everyone is different, so she helps people in different ways.

“She won’t treat everyone the same, but she treats everyone fairly. She’s flexible that way, she’s a role model for me and it’s something I aspire to be. She’s a very good people person.”

Early playing time was also part of the allure.

“I knew they didn’t have a lot of upperclassmen,” said Nichols, a 6-2 former Southridge High standout who was one of three Skyhawks to earn a Pac-10 scholarship. “That was one of the reasons I came here,” even though her family had strong ties to the University of Oregon.

“I’m grateful to get as many minutes as I am right now.”

Lomax (36.2), Smith (24.7) Nichols (19.2), Futch (13.7) and Champlin (6.8) have combined to average 100.6 minutes a game, more than half of the available 200. No other Pac-10 team plays so many freshmen.

“I came here knowing she needed me to play, that I was going to get minutes, and that’s good,” said Smith, an all-East Bay star at Pinole (Calif.) Valley High whose whippet-like quickness will be even more valuable next season when OSU gets enough size to use a transition game.

Smith is second to senior Casey Nash in shots (215), with a team-high 101 3-point attempts. Her long arms clog the perimeter passing lanes; she’s fourth in steals (22) and adept at turning them into breakaway layups.

Futch has increasingly played more point and shooting guard and is second in 3-point percentage (6-17, .353), with a 1-1 assist/turnover ratio (24-24).

“(Wagner) put faith in me, and I wanted to play at the Pac-10 level,” said Futch, the Tacoma News-Tribune’s Player of the Year and a Seattle Times all-state selection whose jersey was retired after her senior year at Auburn (Wash.) Riverside High. “I just wanted the opportunity.”

They’ve also formed a tight bond off the court, helping each other adjust to the rigors of college and to the responsibilities that accompany the freedom of being on their own for the first time. At one time or another, each has hit the figurative, yet very real, freshmen wall; every time, another helped them forge ahead.

Seven months later, they bear little resemblance to the wide-eyed freshmen Wagner greeted in July.

“I’m impressed with how much they’ve grown and matured as young women,” Wagner said.