Scoring title takes back seat to winning

He has told the story before – it is the one he loves to tell – about his last night in a Gonzaga uniform.

Frank Burgess needed 31 points, just an average game, to win the NCAA basketball scoring title in 1961 – Tom Chilton of East Tennessee State being the leader in the clubhouse. The Bulldogs were playing Idaho at Memorial Gym in Moscow and Vandals coach Joe Cipriano sent out an assortment of checkers to run at Burgess, among them was Reg Carolan, whose style would be only slightly more physical in his eight seasons as an NFL tight end.

Naturally, this extra attention left a few teammates open. By halftime, Burgess had taken only seven shots, and Gonzaga coach Hank Anderson had seen enough.

“I don’t remember him ever getting upset with me this way,” Burgess recalled. “He came in and kicked the locker and started yelling, ‘What the hell are you doing? You know what you do best – you do that!’ “

In the end, Burgess got his 31 – 37, actually – and the scoring crown, and though the Zags got spanked, Anderson went home happy. Decades before anyone cared enough about Gonzaga to even mispronounce the name, the coach understood the value of Burgess’ achievement at that stage of the program’s evolution.

Understand this, however – Gonzaga coach Mark Few will not be kicking any lockers at halftime of the Zags’ season finale Monday night if this year’s scoring-champ-in-waiting, Adam Morrison, surrenders his shots.

Unless it’s interfering with winning.

Burgess was on hand for the latest bit of Ammodrama Saturday night, which took a turn for the eerily coincidental. Facing the West Coast Conference’s most driven defender in San Diego’s Corey Belser, Morrison was limited to a season-low 11 points – or exactly what his Halo buddy and closest pursuer in the national points race, Duke’s J.J. Redick, managed earlier in the day in similar hand-to-hand combat with Temple.

“He did?” was Morrison’s reaction, punctuated with a shrug. “It happens.”

The difference between their averages is now .55, with Redick having two games left. A national magazine recently called it the most gripping scoring race in college basketball history – though it’s not the closest (see chart). Heck, the day Burgess went off for a school record 52 points against UC Davis, he’d been trailing Chilton by a mere .01. But it does amount to the most compelling celebrity pairing since Oscar Robertson finished ahead of Seattle U’s Elgin Baylor in 1958.

“I never remember so much media attention to something like that,” Washington State coach Dick Bennett said. “It’s taken on almost an NBA dimension.”

He could have added “and ridiculously so,” but he didn’t.

There is lots of silly debate, especially about strength of competition, as if Redick’s ACC cred somehow trumps anything Morrison has put up. In fact, Redick got a taste that life outside the ACC can be pretty challenging, too, even against truly ordinary Temple.

Burgess finds all the back-and-forth amusing in a way that maybe only a scorer can.

“You know, sometimes you’re surprised when the shot doesn’t go in,” he said. “That’s Adam. I’m not surprised when he makes one, no matter how tough it looks. It’s the opposite of that. You expect him to score and when he doesn’t, you talk about that. I read in the paper the other day about how J.J. couldn’t hit anything. Well, with some guys, that’s not a topic.”

So it was very much a topic when Belser – who with help held Morrison to just 16 in a GU win down in San Diego – was not so much a shadow but a shield. Morrison got minimal touches, didn’t make a field goal the second half and only one over Belser the entire game.

Naturally, there was lots of contact and conversation – “we used to call it ‘selling woof tickets,’ ” Burgess laughed. There was even a double foul called when, as one irony merchant noted, Belser’s face and throat viciously hacked Morrison’s outthrust hands.

“He and Belser seem to have this personal sideshow,” said Few.

Problem for the Toreros was, so much effort was devoted to Morrison that all the other Zags, in particular J.P. Batista, had no trouble making up the difference.

“He’s a good defender,” Morrison said. “But there’s a difference between being a good defender and face-guarding somebody. He wants to face guard me, we’ll take layups all day long. To me, it’s all about team defense. He’s so ingrained with trying to stop me that J.P. got layup after layup.”

And even Belser allowed that, “Anybody who plays defense is all about winning. The satisfaction is not going to be there unless you get a win.”

Just as if Morrison scores 40 and the Zags lose, he’ll go home unfilled?

“Exactly,” Belser said.

Oh, we almost forgot. Gonzaga won, 75-59. Damned sideshow.