COLLEGE BASKETBALL 1995-96 : Kittles and Bits : Villanova Star Remained in School, Now He and Solid Supporting Cast Take Aim at Big East, NCAA Titles

If Kerry Kittles is such a peaceful, placid personality and such an abundant basketball talent, why is it that he keeps sending his coach into periods of agony?

He scores in bunches, he bends and slices his 6-foot-5 body through the lane at crazy angles, and he has driven Villanova Coach Steve Lappas to distraction more than a few times waiting to see if Kittles would be a part of his team.

“ Three times,” Lappas said here this week. “Before his freshman year, after his freshman year, and then this year again.”

Though Kittles is a major reason for Villanova’s rise to become an Eastern power once again, his fitful career has emphasized the fine line Lappas has walked to make it happen.

Each time Kittles pondered whether he should leave Villanova, he ultimately decided to stay, most recently last summer when he turned down a chance to leave after his junior year to gobble up the NBA millions dangling in front of his eyes.

Kittles was coming off a season in which he was voted Big East player of the year, led

Villanova to its first-ever Big East Conference postseason tournament title, and placed himself into the top handful of pro prospects.

That came three years after Rollie Massimino recruited him to Philadelphia, then bolted for Nevada Las Vegas before Kittles enrolled at Villanova. The day after Lappas, formerly coach at Manhattan, got the Villanova job, he flew down to New Orleans to try to talk Kittles out of transferring. After some bumpy moments, Kittles decided to give Lappas, and a Rollie-free Villanova, a try.

The next year, after Kittles went through a desultory eight-victory freshman campaign, he seriously considered transferring again, and Lappas did another hard sell job to keep him.

Then finally, this summer, with Villanova loaded up for a potential national title run in April 1996, Will Kerry go pro? became one of Philadelphia’s most pressing questions.

“They’ve all carried similar anxious feelings,” Lappas said, speaking of Kittles’ decision-making processes. “A lot more after this year, because after the freshman year, he averaged nine [actually, 10.9 points] a game. After the last three years, he averaged 22 [actually, 21.4]. So that makes your anxiety level go up a little higher.”

Did he think Kittles, potentially a top 10 pick, was gone to the NBA?

“I didn’t,” Lappas said. “That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have my moments when it was going on that he was going to go. But from the beginning, I thought he would not leave.”

Kittles, raised in a deeply religious family, has always kept to himself, shying from public view whenever possible--though his basketball ability brings him back relentlessly in front of audiences.

By staying his senior season, getting his college degree, Lappas believes that Kittles will be much more ready for life running up and down the court against the Shaqs, Hardaways and Jordans.

Plus, with juniors Jason Lawson, Chuck Kornegay, Zeffy Penn, Alvin Williams and senior Eric Eberz, Kittles definitely has the chance to lead this team into the Final Four.

“I just felt him coming into his own in a lot of ways,” Lappas said. “He’s a bright kid. He knows where he’s at, and he knows he wanted to get his degree--that was a big factor.

“Emotionally, he was very quiet as a freshman. Very quiet. And just little by little . . . when he got the player of the year award in the Big East, for him to get up there in front of hundreds of people and say the things that he said, he wouldn’t have done that a couple years ago.

“So he’s grown a lot. And he wanted to enjoy another year of that. And I don’t blame him.”

By staying at Villanova, Kittles is well within reach of breaking Keith Herron’s 15-year-old school record for career points, and erasing the bad memories of last year’s first-round triple-overtime loss to Old Dominion in the NCAA tournament.

Kittles averaged 21.4 points and 6.1 rebounds last season, and has gotten off to a solid start by leading Villanova, currently ranked third nationally, to victories over Santa Clara and, Wednesday night, North Carolina, to take the prestigious Maui Invitational title.

“Of course, I wanted to come back this year with the great guys coming back, with the same chemistry, the right mix that I really wanted to be around,” Kittles said. “Just come out and have fun for another year.

“Money isn’t everything in this world. I decided the money’s going to be there, the NBA’s going to be there, so why not come back and enjoy college for another year?”

Kittles, who has obviously grown weary of discussing the topic, concedes he came close to leaving for the pros. He felt he had accomplished something special by winning the conference tournament and by winning the player of the year award, and had given Villanova three more years than he thought he would without Massimino.

“Throughout the whole process, my mind changed a lot,” Kittles said of his NBA decision. “I was trying to decide on an important decision in my life, it was going to affect the rest of my life. So I took my time.”

UCLA Coach Jim Harrick says Kittles made a wise choice, given his strong and consistent play this summer on the U.S. gold medal-winning team at the World University Games in Japan.

“I would think he’d be the third or fourth player taken in the NBA draft this time,” Harrick said. “I think one-two will be [Connecticut’s] Ray Allen and [Wake Forest’s Tim] Duncan, and three will be Kittles.”

Kittles started at guard and averaged more than 14 points a game in the World Games competition.

Said Bruin forward Charles O’Bannon, a World University Games teammate: “I’d watched him play a few times on TV, but I didn’t realize how good a player he was.

“I think the best part of his game is his open-court play. He gets the ball on the wing, consider it a bucket, because he’s going to beat you to the basket and probably dunk the ball.”

The interesting part of all this Kittles’ decision-making is that Massimino’s Wildcat teams, especially at the end, were plodding squads that rarely got out on the break. Lappas preaches a fast-paced, movement-based offense, which fits Kittles’ quick-release shot and springy legs perfectly.

“He fell into my lap, because I didn’t recruit Kerry, yet he’s perfect for the style that we play,” Lappas said. “I mean, there isn’t a better motion offense player anywhere, probably. And he just fell into our lap, there’s no question.

“Besides being as talented as he is, he’s a great player in terms of knowing how to move without the ball. How many guards can play without the ball like he can?

“The first day of practice, Oct. 14 three years ago, I said, ‘This guy’s a great motion player.’ I mean, he scores four to six points a game on back doors. And that’s what we tell the young guys, here’s a guy who scores 22 a game, he gets six of them just on layups, from knowing how to move without the ball.”

Kittles says that, with all the Massimino-recruited players still on the Villanova roster in his and Lappas’ first season, things were chaotic and cranky.

The seniors were looking for a way to get to the NBA, other players were wondering what Lappas would do with them, and behind them all was the tremendous batch of recruits, led by the 6-11 Lawson.

“It took me a while to adjust,” Kittles said. “‘After my freshman year, I was still kind of confused [as to] whether to go back to school, still kind of confused if I was in the right place to spend my career.

“Once the guys graduated out that year, and the new guys came in . . . they were great guys and had a lot better work ethic. They were just great guys to be around.

“Once we had the right chemistry, things started to look better for the future. When the new guys came in, Jason and Alvin and Zeffy, those guys made an impact on the program.”

Right now, the talk in the newly-resurgent Big East, with strong programs again at Georgetown, Connecticut and Villanova, is: Who is the best shooting guard in the conference, Kittles or Allen?

Kittles was voted best Big East player last year, but in most preseason prognostications, the sleek Allen is listed as this year’s outstanding conference player, ahead of Kittles.

But not in the preseason voting by the Big East coaches, and not if you ask Steve Lappas.

“I don’t think he was picked as the preseason player of the year in any magazine,” Lappas said. “Those magazines, I gave him all of them.

“They’re both great players, and I tell Kerry, ‘I think part of your rivalry is who’s going to win more than the other guy.’ And in the last two [last year], Kerry’s had 37 and 27 against Connecticut. So I like my guy. I like Ray. Ray’s great. [But] Kittle’s had 37 and 27 the last two games.”

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Complete Package

In a conference of stars, Villanova guard Kerry Kittles may be the brightest. He finished in the top five among Big East players in six of eight major statistical categories in the 1994-95 season. Statistics are for all games. *--*

Category Avg./Pct. Rank Points 21.4 Second Field Goal Pct. .524 Third 3-Point Pct. .411. Fifth 3-Pointers 2.61 Third Free Throw Pct. .767 Fifth Rebounds 6.1 13th Assists 3.5 12th Steals 2.2 Third

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