Not in Kansas
Bill Self’s sales pitch, as honest as it was, rang hollow at the time. If it hadn’t, Gonzaga’s J.P. Batista might have been wearing a different name – as in “KANSAS” – across the front of his jersey.
Self, who has just finished his first season as the Jayhawks head men’s basketball coach, called Batista last April on the eve of national signing day and made one last cast in hopes of reeling in the 6-foot-9, 269-pound Brazilian.
Self informed Batista, who had put up some impressive numbers at Barton County Community College in Great Bend, Kan., over the winter, that his starting center, freshman David Padgett, was transferring, and that he needed someone to man the low post in Lawrence.
“I didn’t quite believe him, you know,” Batista recalled, “because Padgett had started his whole freshman year. I was like, ‘Uh, I don’t think so.’ If I’d have started my whole freshman year at Kansas, I wouldn’t leave.”
So Batista stayed true to his original decision and signed with GU – only to learn from a television report that aired two days later that Padgett was, indeed, leaving Kansas to play for Rick Pitino at Louisville.
“Actually, it was hard for me to decide between Gonzaga and Kansas,” admitted Batista, a devout Catholic, “because everybody knows they are a traditional top-five school. But my decision was to come here, and I stuck with it.
“Now, God is showing me that I made the right decision.”
The native of Pernambuco, Brazil, and the youngest of three sons born to Joa and Irani Batista, recently staged his Division-I coming-out party by scoring a career-high 18 points in GU’s 78-75 upset of previously unbeaten Oklahoma State.
He followed with a 17-point, 10-double-double in a 63-61 loss to Missouri and scored in double figures in last week’s first two West Coast Conference games against Santa Clara and Saint Mary’s.
In his last four games, Batista has averaged just more than 15 points and six rebounds. He has made 26 of 37 field-goal tries and is shooting a WCC-best 63.2 percent (48-76) from the field. In addition, his minutes have increased from barely more than 10 per game to 17.6, and he expects to log more when the Zags tip it off at 7 tonight against Loyola Marymount in GU’s sold-out McCarthey Athletic Center.
“It took me a while to get where I wanted to be,” said Batista, who speaks English, Portuguese and Spanish. “I knew it would be tough at this level, and it took me eight games to get my breakout game. But I am starting to feel really comfortable and very confident, and I think my teammates know I feel that way, so they are passing me the ball more.”
Bulldogs coach Mark Few agreed.
“He’s more comfortable now, and he’s got his confidence now,” Few said. “That’s pretty standard for somebody coming out of junior college. In a best-case scenario, they’re able to adapt and feel comfortable after half a year, but usually it takes a full year.”
Batista’s progress was slowed considerably by the two-game suspension the NCAA forced him to serve at the start of the season after it was determined his junior college coach had paid his way to a summer basketball camp. But he has managed to learn GU’s system in near-record time, helping offset the recent lack of production from Bulldogs front liners Ronny Turiaf and Sean Mallon.
“There’s no question that he’s really saved our rear ends, basically, during this whole stretch of games we’ve just had,” Few said.
Batista, who played his freshman year at Western Nebraska Community College before transferring to Barton County, averaged 21.2 points and 10.3 rebounds last winter and was named a second-team NJCAA All-American.
He said GU, Kansas, Oregon, Nebraska, Illinois State and Creighton all offered him scholarships last spring.
He chose Gonzaga because of the family atmosphere he discovered when he made his official campus visit.
“That was important,” said Batista, who hasn’t seen his real family since he left Brazil 2½ years ago. “I’ve made a lot of friends in the last three years – especially here at GU, and I’ve shared my life with them. I’m not going to say they fill that spot your mom and dad do, but they’re always there for me.
“I’ve been lucky in that way.”
Still, Batista immensely misses his family.
Batista’s father is a sports announcer back in Pernambuco and does soccer play-by-play for both radio and television. He has a recording studio in his home and produces commercials. He also hires out to videotape special family celebrations such as weddings and birthday parties.
Batista’s mom is an interior designer who, according to her youngest son, “does everything from designing houses to stuffing sofas.”
“We’ve always been a real close family,” Batista said. “My older brother is married, but he still lives on the same street as my parents.”
When asked about the extended separation from his family, Batista admits it has been difficult – more so than adapting to the speed, size and strength of Division-I basketball players.
“But I see it as part of life,” he explained. “Before I stepped on the plane to come over here, I took my dad and mama close to me and said, ‘This is the moment you guys raised me for. I’m leaving right now, but I’m leaving with everything you guys gave me. I’m going to face life, now, by myself, but because of you two, I think I’m going to be ready for it.’ “
And he was.