ATLANTA — The word on the street and the Internet is that N.C. State freshman Scooter Sherrill is disenchanted with coach Herb Sendek and his teammates and is considering a transfer to Michigan, Tennessee, South Carolina, Charlotte or almost anywhere else in the world where they don’t wear red and white.
The word from Scooter, however, is that he’s not going anywhere.
“I don’t know where that stuff starts,” said Sherrill, his gold front tooth glistening under the bright lights of the Georgia Dome. “I mean, who knows? I like Coach and love my teammates. I think my relationship with all of them is good. Yeah, it’s been a tough year and a tough situation, but I’ve never run away because something was tough. I’m going to make it work out in Raleigh. I’m not planning to transfer and I’ve never told anyone I was.”
Still, it’s easy to see how the transfer talk got started and why it doesn’t want to stop.
This hasn’t exactly been a banner season for anyone in Raleigh. Seems like just yesterday Sendek was dancing deliriously at the Red-White preseason scrimmage and the Pack faithful was planning its return to the ACC’s upper half and to the NCAA Tournament.
But the seventh-seeded Pack enters tonight’s game with No. 2 Duke with a dismal 13-15 record and its season on the brink of falling short of even its standard NIT bid.
“We started the season talking about the Final Four,” admitted Sherrill, shaking his head and furrowing his brow. “We had high expectations for ourselves. It didn’t go our way.”
It especially didn’t go Sherrill’s way.
While the great majority of Sherrill’s fellow McDonald’s High School All-Americans have thrived as freshmen and nearly all are starters, Sherrill’s playing time has been limited to 13.6 minutes per game and he has yet to be on the floor at the beginning of a contest. That’s been frustrating, especially when he sees pals like Duke’s freshman flash, Chris Duhon, grabbing ink and making much greater contributions.
“Chris makes me mad,” said Sherrill, feigning anger. “I’m happy for him, though. He’s turned it on lately.”
Sherrill has not turned it on. At least, not yet. He’s shooting 35.5 percent (worst on the team among the guys who get serious time) and an ugly 22.9 percent from the 3-point arc.
Sherrill is fully aware that those cruel numbers don’t lie — and say what you want about how hard it is to get in a shooting rhythm when you don’t play regularly — the kid knows he simply has got to shoot the ball more consistently. He makes no excuses.
For his part, Sendek says Sherrill will be just fine if he hangs with it, that his growing pains, while harsh and hurtful, are necessary and expected.
“He’s handled himself well,” said Sendek. “Scooter’s had a great attitude and has been very responsive to trying to learn and improve. It’s human nature to want it all to come right away.”
But it rarely does. At least it doesn’t in the ACC, unless you’re a prodigy like Jason Williams or Joseph Forte.
Does anyone remember that Duke dynamos Shane Battier and Chris Carrawell were role players as freshmen? Or that Maryland star Juan Dixon played 14-plus minutes and averaged seven points his freshman year?
Sendek gladly offers more names of guys who weren’t overnight sensations.
“You look at some of the all-time great players at N.C. State — Vinny Del Negro, Todd Fuller, Tom Gugliotta — they weren’t necessarily guys who as freshmen set the world on fire,” he said. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I do know that Scooter is a much better, more confident player than he was when he first came through the doors here.”
Sherrill would have been able to smile through this hard winter despite his personal struggles if only his team had performed better. He can deal gracefully with his shots not falling, but not with the pain of a silent, losing locker room. Ask him about his first-year highs and he won’t mention his monster dunk against Duke or his clutch free throws at Florida State.
“The best thing this season was beating Virginia at home when they were No. 9,” said Sherrill. “That meant more to me than anything I did as an individual, because that was a big win for the team.”
Sherrill’s high school coach, Mike Gurley, knows Sherrill as well as anyone, knows how losing gnaws at him.
“It has not been a good year for Scooter, because it has not been a good year for N.C. State,” Gurley said. “How Scooter bases himself is, is his team winning? He won about 500 games at West Rowan and about 300 in middle school and probably didn’t lose too many in Junior Hornets, either.”
Sherrill’s teammates like him because he’s a team-first guy who hasn’t pouted or made waves just because his exalted high-school status didn’t mean instant stardom.
“Scooter works hard and keeps his mouth shut,” said junior guard Archie Miller. “That’s the best thing about him. If you work hard and put your time in, good things happen. Scooter’s bound for good things, because he does those things.”
Miller also offered a few insights as to why there’s so much web buzz about Sherrill’s state of mind.
“Everybody’s going to say things,” he said. “People are looking to eat at you all the time. I think Scooter’s in great position here. I don’t think he’s going anywhere, and I hope he’s not. The guys on the team really like him and I think he likes us, too.”
Sherrill seemed content enough as the Wolfpack practiced Thursday afternoon in preparation for the Blue Devils. He talked about how he’s dreamed of playing in the ACC Tournament since he was a kid, how it was a huge rush for him to jog out of the tunnel deep in the Georgia Dome with a media throng looking on.
“I really am doing just fine,” said Sherrill. “Look, I know I’ve got to become a better all-round player for next year. We’ll have the same guards back (plus another class of stellar recruits), so I’ll just have to work hard this summer and be ready to beat them all out. I really want to play. I’ve got to play.”
Mentor, coach and friend Gurley, who has made the two-hour trip to many of his prize pupil’s games, has no doubts that Sherrill will do the work.
“This year hasn’t curtailed his competitive nature,” he said. “He’s still got the drive. There’s a lot of kids who would have quit, would have let this thing beat them down. But being the person he is, from the family and community he’s from, he keeps thinking that the next game is going to be his chance to break out.”
Most of all Gurley helps Sherrill see the big picture, that one disappointing season does not a career make.
“I tell Scooter on a regular basis, ‘If this is the most difficult year of your life, then you will have a very good life,’ ” Gurley said. “Despite the fact that some of his expectations have not come true, he still loves basketball. It’s just not coming as fast as he thought.”
But it should come. And when it does, Sherrill expects to be wearing red and white.
n
Mike London is the assistant sports editor of the Post. Steve Hanf contributed to this story.
Mike London