Simmons catches a break
SEATTLE – University of Washington’s Tre Simmons almost fell through the academic cracks.
Because of poor grades, he didn’t play basketball as a freshman and sophomore at Garfield High School.
“He was a knucklehead, man,” said Huskies teammate Will Conroy, who played with Simmons at the Seattle high school.
“I didn’t do good in high school my ninth- and 10th-grade years,” Simmons said. “My junior year, I finally picked it up, but it was definitely too late. I didn’t take my SATs. I didn’t even think about it.”
Simmons, a 6-foot-5 senior swingman, came to his senses in time to play at Garfield and now he’s the No. 2 scorer on a 10th-ranked Huskies team that has a 15-2 record and leads the Pac-10 at 5-1 after beating Oregon and Oregon State at home last week.
He had 15 points and a career-high 12 rebounds in the 77-56 victory over Oregon on Thursday night and tied his career high with 26 points against Oregon State on Saturday night in a 108-68 win as Washington bounced back after a loss at UCLA.
He’s leading the team in scoring at 17.4 points per game and is shooting 50 percent from the field, 51.5 from 3-point range and 89.1 from the free-throw line. He’s averaging 6.0 rebounds and is one of the team’s top defenders. Simmons has averaged 26.2 minutes in 15 games, 14 starts.
“He’s a sharpshooter, man,” said Conroy, UW’s starting senior point guard. “The guy can hit from anywhere. He’s a walking assist for me… . He really stretches defenses for us.”
Simmons said his shooting skill is a blessing. “Some people are just meant to shoot and some people aren’t,” he said.
A junior college transfer playing his second season with Washington, he hopes to graduate this spring with a degree in American ethnic studies.
“I think I’ve stepped it up a lot,” Simmons, 22, said when asked his improvement as a student. “I think coach (Lorenzo) Romar is proud of me and what I’ve accomplished. I never thought I would make it to the University of Washington from high school because I took that long road. Fortunately, I made it.”
When Romar came back to Seattle and took over the foundering Washington program from the fired Bob Bender in April 2002, he’d never heard of Simmons. Conroy filled him in.
“I was one of the guys who told coach to go out and get him,” Conroy said. “I told coach to go check him out, and he liked what he saw.”
Looking for talent, Romar flew to Odessa, Texas, where Simmons was playing for Odessa Junior College.
“After watching him play, we had no concerns,” Romar said. “Will gets a commission for that one.”
Simmons enrolled at Washington after playing as a sophomore at Green River Community College in the Seattle area, where he had 51- and 50-point games.
Simmons has filled in capably in the starting lineup for junior guard Brandon Roy, who has started just three games this season because of a bad right knee.
Roy knows it’s going to be hard dislodging Simmons from the starting lineup.
“He’s proven he’s a great scorer,” Roy said. “He’s just got a knack for basketball. He’s a really good player.”
Simmons’ strength is his shooting, but he’s worked hard on his defense.
“I’m trying to defend the best players out there so I can let other people know I’m not just an offensive player. I’m a defensive player, too,” he said.
In Simmons’ first season at UW as a junior, he played in 31 games, including 12 starts, when he averaged 10.8 points, shooting 44.9 from the field and 40.3 from 3-point range.
He helped the Huskies finish second to Stanford in the Pac-10 regular season and Pac-10 tournament, and to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999.
Simmons wants to play professional basketball after his college career is over, but he’s thinking about this season’s NCAA Tournament first. He thinks the loss at UCLA can be a good thing for the Huskies, especially because they blew a 21-point lead in the first half.
“Nobody’s perfect,” he said. “We’ve just got to learn from it and build on it.”