Geary Proves He’s Not a Skinny Kid With No Jumper : Basketball: Mater Dei graduate, now at Arizona, has shown critics he can play at the major-college level.

They said he didn’t have a major-college jumper. They said he was too skinny to tangle with the big boys. They said he wasn’t ready.

But Reggie Geary was ready.

Boy , was he ready.

“People get hung up in a guy being able to knock down jump shots from all over the court,” said Lute Olson, coach of the fourth-ranked Arizona Wildcats and the man who watched nearly every summer-league game Geary played during his last three years at Mater Dei High School.

“Reggie is a capable scorer, but he doesn’t have to score to contribute . . . a lot.”

Olson can cite examples. Lots of examples. Consider last Sunday’s game against eighth-ranked Cincinnati. The box score shows Geary had two points. Olson rewinds the game videotape to take another look at the 6-foot-2 freshman guard and sees much more.

“We’re playing on national television in a game that has very important postseason seeding implications against the team with the best trapping defense in the country,” Olson said. “Reggie comes off the bench and plays 24 minutes. He has four assists, one turnover and he makes the only shot he takes.

“He doesn’t shoot much, but he has a hand in 10 points, takes very good care of the ball under real pressure, plays great defense and gets a steal to negate the turnover.”

OK, he was ready.

“I knew I was ready after the first game,” Geary said. “We played Arkansas and I had 12 points, six assists and three steals. I knew then that if I played hard, stuck to what I do best and didn’t try to play over my head, that I could compete at this level.”

Geary’s athleticism, confidence and poise have made for a smooth transition, but the Mater Dei experience--a hugely successful high school basketball program with the equivalent of a major-college coaching staff--was a big factor.

“I attribute my ability to make such a quick transition to this level almost entirely to playing at Mater Dei,” Geary said. “It’s a direct result of the teaching I had there, the positioning, the fundamentals.

“And going from one program to the other, the defense is very similar. The athletes on this level are much better, of course, but the overall concept is very much the same.”

Olson, who sometimes sounds as if he’s awed by Geary’s freshman feats, insists he isn’t really surprised.

“Having coached in Orange County (at Marina High), I’ve always been very aware of the program Gary (McKnight, Mater Dei coach) is running,” Olson said. “I knew Reggie would come out of high school mentally and physically tough, and he would understand the value of the team.

“He also knew the extra effort it takes to win night after night when most of the teams you face are playing their biggest game of the season. It’s like that here, and a lot of kids aren’t ready to handle that kind of pressure.

“But given his talent and the program, I thought he could make an immediate impact.”

In case you missed Geary’s senior year at Mater Dei, an average night went something like this:

Seventeen points.

Eight assists.

Seven rebounds.

Four steals.

Two blocked shots.

“We had such great depth and talent at Mater Dei that I was really kind of a role player,” Geary says.

Yeah, sure. Most nights, he won the Oscar for every role but leading lady.

And, if you can believe Olson’s latest batch of rave reviews, they may as well get started on building the Geary shrine in front of the McKale Center. Pick a category, and the coach heaps praise on his Fab Frosh.

Defense?

“We have some very, very good defensive players here, but he’s as good as any of them. In fact, he already may be our best. He can go out and play in a guy’s face and still be in the right place when someone needs help.”

Passing?

“He’s tremendously unselfish and a great passer. The guys all love to play with him because if you get open, you get the ball.”

Leadership?

“Reggie is the strongest team leader for a freshman as any player I’ve ever coached.”

Competitiveness?

“He’s just ornery enough to thrive on the pressure situations. You should have seen him when we played at Arizona State. He loves the added challenge of having all those people on his back. He’s feisty.”

OK, let’s go for the soft spot in this shining armor.

Offense?

“The big thing with Reggie is he can contribute so much to the offense without shooting a lot. Actually, he’s shooting about 50% from the field, and that’s awfully good for a guard. Like it is with most freshman, it’s just a matter of confidence and knowing when to, and when not to, shoot.”

If there’s any doubt, Geary opts for finding another way to get the ball through the hoop. And that alone makes him a special freshman.

Geary is averaging 21 minutes per game for a 21-2 team riding a 19-game winning streak and apparently headed for a No. 1 seeding in the NCAA West Regional. A trip to the Final Four is certainly not out of the question, and if the Wildcats get there, Geary--with his modest four-point, four-assist, two-rebound averages--will have played key role.

“I look at the ratings in the paper and think, ‘Wow, I really have contributed to that,’ ” he said. “I never for a moment doubted that choosing Arizona was the right decision, but never, not even in my wildest dreams, did I figure I would get to play this much this season.”

Geary has reached this heady time of his life with an assist from his detractors. It wasn’t so much that he used their doubts as motivation; he listened to their critiques and then went to work.

When the mother of his girlfriend--UC Davis volleyball player Candy Ota--continually chided him for being so skinny, Geary enlisted the aid of a personal trainer and spent much of last summer working on increasing his strength.

“He was worried about competing, size-wise, with Division I players,” said Mike Pearsall, a trainer at the Shape Up Center in Newport Beach. “The weight training was something he had really never done much of before, and his body responded incredibly well.

“We worked together five days a week for about 1 1/2 hours a day for almost four months. His bench press went from 95 pounds to 225 pounds and he put on 15 pounds.”

Geary: “Thanks to Mike, when I showed up here, I was in the best shape of my life.”

Olson discovered Geary’s dedication level during his annual basketball camp in 1991. Olson dropped by the dorms one evening to talk to the boys in camp. The lights were on but nobody was home.

They had been given a couple of hours of free time before lights out, and Geary had talked a coach and some other campers into taking a van over to the McKale Center to work on their shots.

“Yeah,” Geary says, “anytime I have some spare time to take a few extra shots, I will. That’s my focus, to improve, to become a better basketball player.”

Right now, he’s concentrating on that jumper. A deadly accurate three-pointer is about the only thing he needs to round out his repertoire.

And given his track record, you can excuse his confidence that he’ll soon develop it.

“Everyone knows that confidence is a key factor in shooting,” Geary said. “I’m a freshman and I don’t take that many shot attempts, and I’m pressing a bit on the few shot attempts I do get. I think that has caused me to shoot poorly in some games.

“But I know I can be an effective scorer. It’s a daily routine now, I work on my jumper and my offense, and the day Arizona needs me to be a scorer, I’ll be a scorer.”

Any doubters?