It’s Morgan Time When Reserve Plays More, Gonzaga Usually Wins

Universities deal far too extensively in theory, with the practical application of knowledge getting short-changed.

Or so goes an occasional complaint.

One of Scott Morgan’s professors at Gonzaga, though, is on to something worthwhile.

He has assigned Morgan to a quantitative study of the correlation between the minutes he plays and the outcome of GU basketball games.

Morgan hasn’t started the assignment, yet.

But an independent look at the statistics is interesting: When he plays 10 minutes or more a game, GU is 11-3. Less than 10 minutes, 5-5.

Further, the Bulldogs are 5-1 when he is on the court for 15 minutes or more.

These statistics may be reflective of several things. Certainly, a reserve plays more when a team already has the game in hand, making the ratio of minutes to victories irrelevant.

But that’s not the case with the 6-foot-7, 230-pound junior forward, who has averaged 18 vigorous minutes a game as GU has won six of its last seven West Coast Conference contests.

“I’m just somebody who goes in there and fouls guys and plays hard and dives on the floor and does the dirty work,” Morgan explained of his role with the 16-8 Bulldogs, who play host to San Francisco tonight in the Martin Centre.

“I like playing like that and I’ve always tried to play like that, but I’ve really learned recently that that’s how you get playing time around here.

“I was frustrated for a while, and finally I realized that to get more time, I was going to have to be sure to play my hardest every time I’m out there.”

Few could question Morgan’s determination at this point, as his appearances off the bench - often in tandem with Scott Snider - seem to energize the Bulldogs.

And he is not simply a foul in search of a victim.

Against Loyola Marymount on Groundhog Day, Morgan emerged as an offensive force, scoring 18 points in 26 minutes.

“This kid has shown he can make some plays against good people,” GU coach Dan Fitzgerald said. “I probably haven’t said to him enough that he’s really improved, but the reality is, he has. And there’s still a lot more there.”

Considering Morgan is also the starting rightfielder on the GU baseball team, Fitzgerald sees him as “one of the better athletes we’ve had.

“He’s probably the fastest guy on our baseball team, and he’s a really talented kid who is finally learning to be aggressive,” Fitzgerald said.

The speed comes from his grandfather, who, as the story goes, once was recruited to race against Jesse Owens but couldn’t because of an injury during training.

His sister, meanwhile, once won the California state 100-meter sprint championship.

At Lompoc (Calif.) High, Morgan was a football teammate of Washington running back Napoleon Kaufman, and showed enough promise in baseball to be drafted in the 22nd round by the Milwaukee Brewers.

“I just wasn’t mature enough,” Morgan said. “I wasn’t physically mature; I was really skinny.”

By attending Allan Hancock J.C. in Santa Maria, Calif., Morgan got bigger and stronger and married.

His wife, Claudia, also decided to attend Gonzaga and is a walk-on contributor on the women’s basketball team.

A knee injury caused Morgan to have a medical redshirt season last year before turning out for baseball and batting .314 with six home runs and a 12-for-14 success rate in stolen bases.

This basketball season, Morgan flirted with a starting role before an ankle injury sidetracked him.

Six games into what looked to be a horrendous conference season for the Bulldogs, Morgan began asserting himself and, probably not coincidentally, GU won five straight.

“I think something just snapped inside of us and we decided we were a lot better than we were playing,” Morgan said. “Because nothing else really changed; we didn’t change practices or anything like that.”

Fairly typical of the GU players, Morgan is a scholastic achiever, majoring in special education and racking up a 3.55 GPA good enough for Dean’s List mention - last semester.

Why special education? “Because I really like the idea of helping people and helping them improve their lives,” he said.

Competing in two sports, upholding a lofty GPA and sharing household duties with his wife (“Sure, I do laundry and share the cooking,” he said), Morgan doesn’t have to worry about how to fill his free time.

“It’s tough, two sports and being married, and then taking a full 17 or 18 units. During finals, when everything is going to hell, I think I’ve bitten off too much. But this is really a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so you have to just make the best of it,” he said.

Which, apparently, he is.

“He has a real future I think, down the road, in baseball,” Fitzgerald said. “And for us, with one more year of basketball, if he keeps up the way he is, he can really be somebody.”