Peak Performer Casey Calvary Elevates His Game, And Takes Gu With Him

On a basketball court, Casey Calvary plays an entirely different game than most of those around him - and at an entirely different altitude.

In less than two full seasons, Gonzaga’s sophomore forward has established himself as, perhaps, the best jumper to ever wear a Bulldogs uniform. And he’s done it with a vertical leap that is not nearly as impressive as it would seem to be.

Calvary doesn’t even know what it is.

“I had it measured once,” recalled the 6-8, 215-pounder from Tacoma, “but I don’t remember what it was. To me, it’s like, jump? OK. How high?”

His coach, Dan Monson, insists Calvary’s vertical is no higher than those of Matt Santangelo and Ryan Floyd, a couple of guards on his 16-4 Bulldogs team that will take a spotless 6-0 West Coast Conference record into tonight’s Martin Centre matchup against Santa Clara.

“But what sets Casey apart is he’s very long, he’s got tremendous timing and he makes it happen quicker than any kid I’ve ever seen,” Monson explained. “When Matt or Ryan goes up, they have to coil their body to do it. Casey just hops.

“He gets up quicker than any kid I’ve even seen, without having to use a lot of body motion to do it.”

Calvary, who played at Bellarmine Prep under coach Bernie Salazar, became an instant crowd favorite as a freshman last year. He played in all 34 of GU’s games and led the West Coast Conference with 46 blocked shots - most of them spectacular, free-wheeling swats that brought as many gasps as his soaring, emphatic, two-handed dunks.

This year, he is on pace to collect even more blocks (34) and he’s averaging a WCC-best 8.1 rebounds per game. He also has established an inside, back-to-the-basket offensive presence.

Through 20 games, Calvary is averaging 10.2 points per game. The dunk is still his main offensive staple, which helps explain his league-leading shooting percentage of 68.8 (77 of 122). But he also has sharpened his aim from outside, where he leads the Bulldogs in 3-point shooting with a percentage of 46.4 (13 of 28).

His offensive diversity has seemed to surprise everyone but Calvary.

“A coach told me once that I should dunk the ball every time because then you always know it’s going in,” Calvary explained. “But my shooting stroke feels fine right now, so if an (outside) shot comes, I’ll shoot it. I’m not afraid of it.” And Monson doesn’t want him to be, especially since he has decided to make Calvary one of his main offensive weapons.

“Just in the last two weeks, we’ve probably put in four more entries (plays) just to try to get the ball into him on the block,” Monson said. “They’re like the ones we used for Bakari (Hendrix) that we never dreamed we’d use this year.”

Calvary, for reasons beyond his youthful exuberance, work ethic and tough, aggressive nature, will always hold a special place in Monson’s heart. He decided to commit to Gonzaga during Dan Fitzgerald’s final season as the Bulldogs’ head coach.

Monson, a longtime GU assistant, had already been named to succeed Fitzgerald, but he and his staff were still unproven outside Fitzgerald’s immense shadow.

“That was the transitional year where Fitz didn’t go out recruiting and (recruits) were never going to play for him,” Monson recalled. “So Casey, in essence, believed in us before we were us; before we got a chance to prove ourselves.”

Despite receiving in-home visits from 17 Division I coaches, Calvary took only two recruiting trips - to GU and Colorado State. He chose Gonzaga because it felt right.

“You can’t fake affection, and you could tell that guys here really like each other,” Calvary said. “When I took the trip (to Colorado State), the team cohesiveness just wasn’t there. You’d think on a recruiting trip, they’d at least try to make it seem like there was some team unity, but I didn’t see it.”

Among the teams who weren’t interested in Calvary were Washington and Washington State. The Huskies signed two other in-state players that year and WSU just didn’t seem to care, even though Calvary’s older brother, Andrew, is enrolled there.

“I talked to them on the phone a couple of times and they sent me a form letter,” Calvary said. “But they never even sounded like they wanted me at all - which didn’t really make me too sad, because I don’t like Pullman all that much anyway.”

There are those who wonder today what UW and WSU were thinking when they let Calvary escape. Monson thinks he knows.

“Casey was a raw talent when it was time for him to make a decision on college,” he recalled. “Recruiting is so much projection, and I could see where some schools were probably looking for an athlete like him that was more advanced in his basketball skills.

“But me, I fell in love with him immediately, because I knew an athlete like that who worked as hard as he does was going to improve a lot. So,I just kept my fingers crossed that bigger schools weren’t going to come in.”

When GU played at Kansas and Purdue early in the year, Monson said coaches at those two national powers asked the same question about Calvary: How did you get that guy?

“I guess it’s easy to say other people should have recruited him and stuff, but as it turns out, he’s just done a great job of developing,” Monson said. “It wasn’t like he was unrecruited, but now you look at him and ask, `Can he play in the Pac-10?’

“Are you kidding? He can play anywhere. And if he continues to develop offensively, I think he can play at the next level.”

Which would be quite a jump - even for Casey Calvary.