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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Heytvelt, Davis won’t return for tournament

The indefinite suspensions handed down to Gonzaga University basketball players Josh Heytvelt and Theo Davis following their arrests on drug possession charges last month will definitely last the rest of the season.

Bulldogs coach Mark Few confirmed that following Saturday afternoon’s practice in preparation for the NCAA tournament, which starts later this week. But he added that both players are still enrolled in school, attending classes and doing what they need to do in order to be considered for reinstatement on the team once the legal procedures and university’s Student Life process run their courses.

“That’s been the plan all along,” Few said. “When I originally set out to decide what we should do, it became crystal clear to me that we didn’t need to play these two or have them on our team the rest of this year.

“But then we also need to make sure we help them and turn this into a positive story with a great ending. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Heytvelt, a sophomore, and Davis, a freshman, were arrested in Cheney shortly before midnight on Feb. 9 after police stopped the vehicle in which they were riding and found about 33 grams of hallucinogenic mushrooms in a backpack in the cargo area of the vehicle, which belonged to Heytvelt, along with a small amount of marijuana that police said Davis admitted to having in his possession.

Police said the two players told them they had been to a party earlier that evening, with Davis admitting he had smoked marijuana at the party. Heytvelt, however, denied knowing about the mushrooms and suggested they might belong to a friend who had borrowed his vehicle for a couple of days.

Heytvelt, who was GU’s leading rebounder and second-leading scorer at the time of the arrests, is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday for felony possession of a controlled substance. Davis, who had not played this year after suffering an early season shoulder injury, has been charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana and is also awaiting arraignment.

Since losing Heytvelt, the Bulldogs have won six of eight games, clinching their ninth-consecutive NCAA tournament berth with Monday’s 77-68 win over Santa Clara in the finals of the West Coast Conference tournament.

The Zags (23-10) will learn their NCAA seeding and the date, opponent and location of their opening-round game this afternoon when the tournament’s selection committee announces its 65-team bracket at 3. Few and his team will watch CBS-TV’s Selection Show in private and make themselves available for media interviews following its conclusion.

But Heytvelt and Davis will not be included, as they continue working toward reinstatement.

According to Few, the two players speak regularly with him and members of his coaching staff and have both addressed former teammates about their transgressions.

“It’s part of the process,” he said, adding that earning back the trust of those former teammates remains an important requirement for their reinstatement.

When asked if he felt Heytvelt and Davis were strong enough, emotionally, to deal with the unsympathetic reaction they will undoubtedly receive from opposing fans – especially on the road – should they be allowed to return next season, Few said:

“Considering what they’ve faced already, there can’t be anything harder than what this has already put them through. They’ve paid an incredible price with just the publicity and notoriety of it all. And they’ve had to go back to class and back into our locker room.”

Yet Few insists that he, personally, has still not come to terms with the shock, anger and disappointment he felt when he first learned about the wayward actions of Heytvelt and Davis – which is why he stopped short of declaring himself “pleased” with how they are dealing with their suspensions.

“I don’t know if I’m getting past anything yet,” he said, “so the emotion of being pleased … ? Let’s just say it’s hard to impress me, or whatever.

“But we are going to help them. We are going to try to make this thing right for them. That’s certainly been my and my staff’s approach. And it has been (university president) Father (Robert) Spitzer’s approach since Day One, too, when he prefaced it by saying, ‘That’s what Gonzaga is all about.’”