MISENHEIMER — Nem Sovic’s Pfeiffer teammates can’t stop him any more than the rest of the basketball world. Sovic dropped 37 points on his buddies when coach Dave Davis put his troops through their first official scrimmage recently.
The list of accomplishments for the 6-foot-6 (“in my shoes”) native of Yugoslavia is longer than Mike Tyson’s rap sheet. Last year, the senior made the Division II All-America team; was named Carolinas-Virginia Athletic Conference Athlete of the Year; men’s hoops MVP for the CVAC; and MVP of both the Bobby Lutz Invitational and C.F. Parks Invitational tournaments.
Sovic’s numbers are so ridiculously good they look like maybe someone spilled coffee on the stat-sheet. While Pfeiffer was going 26-5 last season, the 22-year-old post man scored 22.8 ppg while playing only 20.5 minutes a game.
That’s serious man-against-boys stuff. Like Sovic was playing against Mount Tabor High instead of Mount Olive University. Or going up against Shelley Long instead of Longwood. Has anyone made All-American while playing only half the available minutes?
“You’ve been around longer than me,” says Davis. “You remember seeing numbers like that? Those are incredible numbers.”
Well, maybe Boston’s Kevin McHale in his heyday, I tell him. But upon further review, a quick check of the record book reveals that McHale’s best ratio was 26.1 ppg in 39 minutes per game in 1986-87. As far as the NBA, you have to go back to Wilt Chamberlain’s astonishing 50.4 ppg numbers in 1961-62 for Philly. Wilt averaged 47.8 minutes per game that year, which means he never sat down. Of course, neither did Pete Maravich when he was averaging 40-plus points per game in essentially 40 minutes per game at LSU 30 years ago.
But Sovic sits down. He sits down a lot. Davis’ system is to run like heck and play 12 guys. So Sovic stays fresh. Anytime he’s in the game, he’s sprinting flat-out. As Sovic points out, he’s constantly running by exhausted big men for easy buckets.
“Our point guard, Terrence (Baxter), is always looking for me,” said Sovic. “On this team, with all these great players, that’s flattering.”
Sovic says Baxter’s ability to push the ball and find open men explains his 57-percent shooting from the field last season. Sovic added 81 percent from the foul line. So what can Sovic do for an encore in 2000-2001?
“We can win the (Division II) championship,” says Sovic. “We have most of our people back. We are better than last year.”
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Sovic’s odyssey to Pfeiffer is a story in itself. He grew up playing basketball and soccer like every boy in Yugoslavia, but eventually fled the war-torn nation with his mother. He says he was lucky, that they exited Belgrade, the capital, while the trouble was still some distance away.
Sovic and his mother settled in Canada, where he became a high school standout. He averaged 21 ppg as a senior and college recruiters came to check him out — some of them big American schools.
But the D-I folks worried about his defense (or lack thereof) and backed off. Sovic came to the South looking for a school. Somehow, he found out about Pfeiffer and a brand new coach named Davis. And Davis, never one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, didn’t let Sovic get away.
Sovic red-shirted his first year in Misenheimer, as did Baxter and another current Falcon star, Emory Smith.
“That first year at Pfeiffer was very hard,” said Sovic. “I was used to a big city (Belgrade has a population of 212 million). It was hard to watch my teammates, but not play. But Coach kept working with me. Made me feel like I was important. He was always there when I needed him.
“And now,” adds a smiling Sovic, whose English is as precise as his jump shot, “that red-shirt year has paid off.”
Yeah, sort of like adding Ringo to the band paid off for the Beatles.
“We thought Nem might develop into a decent player,” said Davis. “He was not the player then that you see now. He’s gotten from there to here because of one thing — sweat.”
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Sovic works his way swiftly through one of Davis’ shooting drills. He accepts a pass with soft hands, makes a fundamentally perfect ball-fake, then takes three quick dribbles. He bounces to a textbook jump-stop and splits the nets with a soft 16-footer. Over and over and over. Without a miss.
Still, it would be wrong to stereotype “Nem the Gem” as just another European dead-eye. He proves that emphatically moments later by flashing to the rim and throwing down an authoritative two-handed jam.
“This summer there was not a day I was away from basketball,” said Sovic. “I worked hard on my athleticism. Now I win dunk contests.”
“Nem’s work ethic is unbelievable,” added Falcon guard Jay Moody. “He wants it bad. We’ve got competitive guys, but he might be the most competitive of all.”
Hard work has led to Sovic helping the Falcons’ cause in other ways besides scoring. His rebounding has become a plus, while his defense has grown from non-existent to competent.
“I have improved on defense,” Sovic says. “There are so many good defensive players on this team — Terrence, Emory, Dwayne Bell. I’ve been lucky to have the teammates I do. I say that not just because it is politically correct, but because it is true.”
The learning curve doesn’t end for Sovic on the court. As he says in his impressive command of American slang, he “picks up new stuff” every day.
“I have taken great classes at Pfeiffer,” he said. “I am a math major and I have learned math, but I have been educated in many other things, too.”
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Sovic’s mother came to Pfeiffer to watch him play over the holidays last December, but his father, who is still in Yugoslavia and whom he visits in the summer, has only seen him play in pickup games. One day, they may have the chance to see their talented son playing pro ball in the states or in Europe. Or maybe the Olympics.
“I do think about the future,” said Sovic, “but I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet. There is too much to concentrate on at Pfeiffer this year. I want to focus on a championship.”
And this year, Sovic may even get to focus on that championship for more than 20 minutes at a time.
“The temptation is going to be pretty great,” says a grinning Davis, “to keep Nem on the floor.”
Assistant sports editor Mike London covers college basketball for the Post.
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