Rise of Downs
The question was posed to Micah Downs on Sunday, shortly after he and his Gonzaga University teammates had learned the NCAA had awarded them a No. 10 seed in the West Region of its prestigious postseason men’s college basketball tournament.
“If you had stayed at Kansas, you’d be a No. 1 seed right now,” someone noted. “Any regrets?”
“No regrets whatsoever,” answered the 6-foot-8 sophomore and former McDonald’s High School All-American, who transferred from KU last winter after spending only one semester with the Jayhawks.
“I’ll take the 10 at Gonzaga any day.”
Downs’ response, while brief, comes across as a resounding testimonial to the GU program, considering it came from an admittedly troubled young man and basketball nomad, of sorts, who has struggled to fit it at many of the stops he made prior to arriving in Spokane.
Downs, who attended seven different high schools in three different states on his way to becoming one of the most sought-after prep recruits in the country, arrived at Gonzaga with an excess of emotional baggage. And he shouldered another suitcase or two while struggling through the transfer process and dealing with the very real possibility of falling into academic hell.
He remembers that period, in late December of 2005, as one of the most trying of his young life.
“I don’t want to make excuses,” Downs said, recalling those dark days of December, “but I did transfer in late and the whole process of transferring – moving, traveling back and forth, talking to NCAA officials, dealing with the coaches back at Kansas and dealing with family stuff – caused a lot of distractions and stress.
“Nobody outside of the basketball team knew it, but I was on the brink of not being eligible because of my academics. I failed some classes and my GPA was really low. It was the low point in my life.”
Downs eventually managed to get his academic act together and remain eligible, but admits he was on the edge, emotionally.
“I don’t know if I was actually clinically depressed, or whatever,” he explained. “I didn’t need a psychiatrist or anything, and I never contemplated suicide or anything like that, so I don’t think it went that far.
“But I was really down, and I was upset a lot.”
At the time, Downs was also dealing with what he calls a “troubled relationship” with his estranged family and trying – with the help of counseling – to regain a trust in people he claims he lost during his short stays at various high schools.
“It was tough,” he admitted of having to make new friends at schools in Nevada, Montana and Washington, where he spent his junior year at Bothell High, before transferring to Juanita, where he averaged 24.8 points and 12.2 rebounds as a senior. “I’ve gotten some good things out of it, but I’ve developed some bad habits and bad personality traits, as well.
“I’m a nice person and I get along with people pretty well, but because of all the moves we made, I have a hard time trusting people and believing what they say. But since I’ve been here, I’ve been seeing a couple of counselors and other people who work with athletes on the mental part of basketball and the mental part of life, and they’ve helped me straighten that part out.”
Downs refused to go into detail about his family problems but did admit that, until recently, he was not on speaking terms with his father, Steven, whose job as a construction worker was at the root of several – but not all – his family’s moves.
“My dad also had a troubled relationship with his father growing up as a kid,” Downs explained. “But they’ve mended things. He’s working through a lot of things again now, and he’s still working on changing parts of his personality and what he’s like as a person.
“He has trouble trusting people, too, and buying into programs and things like that. So if things didn’t go perfect – if there were any bumps along the road with my teammates or my coach through high school – we’d kind of want to move, and I picked up some of those attributes because of my dad.”
When Downs left Kansas, internet message boards were filled with comments and opinions about the reason behind his departure. Lack of playing time, girlfriend problems, poor grades, disdain for his Jayhawks teammates and a domineering father were among the many explanations – most of them way off base, according to Downs – that were offered.
There were reports, for instance, that Downs’ father had accompanied him to Lawrence, Kan., where he played in 13 games and averaged 4.3 points and 2.2 rebounds during his first semester as a freshman.
“That was another one of the faulty rumors,” Downs said. “I was down there by myself. No one moved down there with me.”
The main reason behind his transfer, he explained, was his desire to become part of a family – like the one he claims to have found at Gonzaga, his “second choice” of colleges coming out of high school.
“I wanted to take a visit here,” he recalled, “but I took a visit down to Kansas and made my decision. It was a dumb mistake, but I learned from it.
“I just didn’t fit well down there. No knock on them. They were decent human beings, but I just needed to get away. I wasn’t even happy playing basketball anymore, so I thought, ‘If this is the way I feel, I need to do something about it.’ “
Since arriving at GU, Downs seems to have made strides in learning to trust people again. He insists he is as happy as he has been in years, and feels completely at ease as a member of the Bulldogs team he joined in early January after sitting out the first semester under the NCAA’s transfer rule and then missing five games with a broken foot.
“Gonzaga’s just been great,” said Downs, who is averaging 8.4 points and 3.6 rebounds in his 16 games as a Zag. He played a key role in GU’s two-game West Coast Conference tournament title run by scoring 28 points, chasing down 20 rebounds and earning a spot on the all-tournament team.
“The coaches have been understanding, and my teammates have been awesome. They’ve helped me a lot.”
Junior forward David Pendergraft, who roomed with Downs over the summer, said he had heard about his future teammate’s personal problems prior to his arrival at GU and had some doubts about whether he would fit in.
“But now that I’ve gotten to know him and lived with him for a summer, I can see that he’s really matured a lot as a human being. And I think that’s helped him out a lot with his relationships with other people.”
Pendergraft never asked Downs about his troubled past.
“People aren’t going to open up and talk to me about stuff like that, and that’s fine,” he said. “What’s important is the here and now, so I told him, ‘Let’s start off on the right foot and get things the way they should be.’
“I get the feeling he likes it here a lot better than Kansas. He likes the guys here better, and the coaching staff, too, because I think we treat him like he needs to be treated.”
Bulldogs coach Mark Few admits that he, too, had reservations about bringing Downs on board. And Downs’ inability to stick it out at any of the high schools he attended – or Kansas, either – was at the top of his list of concerns.
“After talking with him, there were numerous reasons for all the changes,” Few explained. “But at the end of the day, there were numerous changes. So when he came here, we told him he was going to have to show some stick-to-itiveness and hang with it through some adversity.
“We explained that this was probably his last stop on the Division I train, and that he was going to have to make it work.”
Downs started slow, seeing only limited minutes, after coming off his injury. But in recent weeks, he has emerged as one of the Bulldogs’ top scoring options and most energetic rebounders.
“The biggest change is that he’s had a bigger and better opportunity to show what he’s capable of doing,” Few said. “And he’s done a phenomenal job of that. With the way he shoots the ball and with the great feel he has for the game, the more he’s out there, the more he’s going to be able to show.”
Few also likes the way Downs has made himself a trusted member of Gonzaga’s basketball family.
“I don’t know that he’s had great team experiences in the past,” Few said. “So it’s been really valuable for him to get around some good teammates and really enjoy – savor, even – being part of a team.
“I don’t think he’s ever really had that, and the fact that he’s found it here also speaks volumes about the kind of guys on this team that would let somebody come in at midyear like Micah did. He’s taking minutes away from somebody, and he’s taking shots away from somebody, yet they’ve embraced him, and I think that’s really helped him.”
Yet to be resolved, however, are Downs’ complex, and extremely personal, family issues. But even those, he said, are slowly sorting themselves out.
“My folks haven’t seen me play for quite awhile,” Downs said. “We’ve had a troubled relationship the last couple of years, but we’re working on straightening things out. Things have gotten a lot better since I transferred. I’m talking with them again, and I know they’re going to want to eventually come to a game.”
Until the day arrives, though, Downs will remain focused on doing what he can to help Gonzaga extend its season, which continues Thursday in Sacramento, Calif., where the Bulldogs will face seventh-seeded Indiana in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.
“He’s still got a lot of room to grow,” Few said of Downs. “We’re hoping that the qualities of all the great players and kids in our program will continue to rub off on him, and that he’ll take on even more of those characteristics.”