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Featherston: It?s Not Easy Being Tall
2/28/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
DURHAM, N.C. ? It's not always easy to be a seven-footer, living in a world designed for people standing six-foot or below. And even on the basketball court, where great height is usually an advantage, it can also bring special challenges.
“I was always a target, especially in high school,” Duke's Brian Zoubek said. “I was a target for teams' defenses, a target for teams' aggression ... for teams' anger. I had one game my sophomore year when we were playing our biggest rival. They had a football player starting on their team. First play of the game, he walks out on the court, winds up and punches me right in the crotch. There was stuff like that all through high school.”
But Zoubek, a 7-foot-1, 260-pound sophomore center for the Blue Devils this season, is not complaining about his size.
“I am happy being a seven-footer,” he said. “It has its perks and it has its cons every once in a while. Overall, I'm comfortable with it. It was just something I learned over the years. It was a little tougher when you're younger. As you become older, you become more confident and grow into your body a little bit more.
“I just grew into who I am.”
Zoubek was always bigger than his peers. He inherited his size from his parents ? his father stands 6-foot-6 and his mother is 6-foot-3. It's not surprising that he grew up with a basketball in his hands.
“I started in the driveway -- I've been playing my whole life,” he said. “[My Dad and I] played in the driveway all the time. Then I got a little too big for him and too good and he wouldn't play me any more. But we had some battles in the driveway, I'll tell you that.”
Zoubek also played soccer and baseball as a youngster.
“I was a [soccer] goalie, but I could mix it up on the field,” he said. “In baseball, I pitched and played first base. That's the one thing I miss ? pitching. I miss it.”
But basketball proved too strong a lure for a young man who normally stood at least a head taller than his classmates.
“I've always had a height advantage on my peers,” he said. “It became more pronounced in middle school. Basketball became something I wanted to focus on because I really loved to play it and I thought I would be good at it.”
It took Zoubek's game quite some time to catch up with his body. As a freshman at Haddonfield (N.J.) Memorial High School, he came off the bench. He started his sophomore year as a reserve. It was during that season that the big, awkward high school backup began to show signs of the player he would become.
“That's when I started coming into my own a little bit,” Zoubek said. “I didn't play much my freshman year until the end of the year. I hadn't really grown into my body yet. And there was a guy ahead of me who was already a starter. My sophomore year, he got hurt and I was able to step up.”
Zoubek finished his sophomore season as an all-conference selection on a championship team. By his junior year at Haddonfield, he was an all-state pick and after leading Haddonfield Memorial to its third straight Group II state title in 2006, Zoubek was selected as the state's player of the year. He had 21 points, 20 rebounds and eight blocked shots in the title game and averaged 24.7 points and 12.3 rebounds as a senior.
Naturally, Zoubek, who was also an excellent student who loves reading about history, found himself the target of an intense recruiting war. Stanford and Princeton were early contenders for his services with Notre Dame and Wake Forest making late efforts to land the fourth-team Parade All-American.
But one school was always the frontrunner.
“My Aunt went to Duke and she always had me in Duke outfits since I was a little kid,” Zoubek said. “It was my dream to come here, so I was very, very fortunate. The day I got my first recruiting letter from Duke, my high school coach drove it over and brought it to me at my house. He knew it was my dream to come here.”
There was one problem. Although Zoubek moves well for his size, he doesn't fit the mold of the typical Mike Krzyzewski big man. Typically, Blue Devil post stars have been inside-outside types in the Mark Alarie/Danny Ferry/Christian Laettner mold or quick, strong power forward types such as Elton Brand/Carlos Boozer/Shelden Williams.
Could a player of Zoubek's type fit a Krzyzewski system that depended on pressure man-to-man defense and motion on offense?
“That was definitely a concern,” the young big man said. “But Coach reassured me. He said, ?You adjust to your players.' He told me that if I was good enough and I worked hard enough and I was able to demonstrate my value, the system would be run with me in it. If I could incorporate things like defense and stuff like that, it would only serve me better as a player. Instead of laying back in a zone all during college and not learning how to play defense and not learning to run ? things that would be valued very highly at the next level.”
So far at Duke, Zoubek has struggled to find a consistent role on the team.
“It's real tough,” he admitted. “One of the things I worked on my freshman year was my ability to run the court. I was doing a lot of conditioning. And I think the defense was a little tough to me. It took me a while to buy into how important it was and how important it was for the big guy ? the center ? to play that defense. I think I'm still learning it and getting better at it every day.”
It's kind of funny, but several of Zoubek's strongest outings occurred in his first real games in a Duke uniform. He had 18 points and six rebounds in just 14 minutes in his debut against Columbia and followed that two games later with 17 points, seven rebounds and two blocked shots in 20 minutes against UNC Greensboro. He added 12 points and seven rebounds against Davidson in late November.
Yet, that November stretch proved to be the high point of Zoubek's freshman season. After scoring 57 points and grabbing 28 rebounds in his first six games, he managed just 41 points and 43 rebounds in his final 26 outings.
“I don't know what happened,” Zoubek said. “I just came out [to start the season] and at that point, I was really confident and not worried about anything. As the season went on, I started thinking about more things and not just playing.”
Zoubek also had to reshape his body.
“In high school, he did not have a hard body, so when he got here, he lost a lot of weight,” Duke assistant Steve Wojciechowski said last summer. “Now he's in the process of putting weight back on, but it's good weight.”
The results were obvious to anyone who saw Zoubek perform in last summer's pickup games. He was stronger, more aggressive and more confident than at any time during his freshman season.
“Summer was real good for me,” he said. “I was feeling the best I've ever felt. I was really asserting myself and playing some of the best basketball of my life.”
But all that progress was sabotaged when he suffered a broken bone in his foot ? a very similar injury to the one that sidelined Elton Brand for almost three months in 1998 and twice put Carlos Boozer on crutches.
“To have an injury happen like that, it was heartbreaking,” he said. “I haven't gotten back to where I was in the summer at all. A little of it is physically ... a lot of it is mentally. A lot of it is the confidence to do what I know I can do and do that with the guys around me.”
That setback forced Zoubek to play catchup in the fall ? trying to get back into prime condition even as he prepared for the season. He was just starting to come around ? he had a 13-point, seven rebound effort in a start against Albany ? when he reinjured his foot and was back on crutches.
Zoubek missed nine games in the middle of the season. But as frustrated as the big man was, he worked as hard as he could to minimize the damage.
“I did a lot of lifting ... a lot of leg therapy to keep my legs strong,” he said. “I did a lot of range of motion stuff, keeping my hips loose. I ran the pool, suspended in the pool ? everything possibly I could do. I rode a lot of bike and did a lot of exercises that didn't involve turns.”
The hard worked has helped Zoubek catch up to where he was before the injury. He contributed four points, five rebounds and two steals in 14 minutes in the loss at Miami, then came back with his first career double-double (11 points, 13 rebounds) in a 20-minute stint against St. John's.
Krzyzewski couldn't hide his delight at Zoubek's performance against the Red Storm.
“Brian's been out most of the season and [it's important] to get him integrated back in our team and see how does he fit in,” the Duke coach said. “To have him play the minutes he did and get a double-double was big. Brian is an asset and we know he's going to be with us.”
Zoubek's importance to the 2007-08 Blue Devils is pretty easy to see. Without him, Duke has to play with one of the smallest frontcourts in college basketball. The team can ? and has ? overcome that handicap at times, but it will be a lot easier for Krzyzewski going into postseason if he can call on the biggest player in the ACC for some solid minutes in the post.
That could have positive repercussions up and down the lineup. For instance, Krzyzewski suggested that Zoubek's presence could help freshman Kyle Singler become an even more effective player.
“If Brian can continue to stay healthy and play, it might mean that with Brian inside, Kyle might be able to go outside,” Coach K said. “That's really where he should play. He should be more of a trailer on the break, like how [Shane] Battier played and not guarding the five as much. He's had to do that all season, but now ? for at least for some minutes in a game, Brian can do that and I think some things will open up [for Singler].”
Duke's seven-footer is confident that he can contribute.
“I'm pretty much all the way back physically, except for the cardio and the leg strength a little bit,” he said. “Other than that, I feel really confident and really strong about my body.”
Whatever happens down the stretch this season, Zoubek will still have two more seasons to try and establish himself as a dominant big man at Duke and not just a spot player off the bench.
“Man, who knows what the future is,” Zoubek said. “At this point, it can go anywhere. I'm just hoping to keep building this season, then we'll see next season. It depends on how much work I put in and if God allows me to stay healthy.”
As he's fought to find a role for the Blue Devils, Zoubek has revisited his original decision to come to Duke and try and fit in a system that has never before featured a player like him.
“It's something I think about more and more as the days drag on,” Zoubek admitted. “I still believe I definitely can do it. My journey has been a little different than I thought it would be, but I think the end result will ultimately be the same. While I might not have been stringing together the types of performances in games ... I just believe that as soon as I gain the confidence and experience that comes from playing a lot, that the games will start showing up.”
It's well to remember that Zoubek didn't start to blossom in high school until midway through his sophomore season. In his last two years, he was a star ? the key player on a championship team.
There's still plenty of time for Duke's only seven-footer to grow into that kind of role.
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