Feb. 14, 2008

By Bill Hass
theACC.com

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Some players are so consistent that it is said you can pencil them in for a certain statistical total.

When it comes to Anthony King and rebounding, forget the pencil and start searching for a pen with indelible ink.

Miami's senior post player may not be the most prolific rebounder in the ACC, but no one is more steady. He has grabbed at least six rebounds in 21 of the Hurricanes' 23 games this season (and in one of the two he didn't, he snagged five). And, as far as he is concerned, there's no real mystery to it.

"It's just something you do," he said. "Rebounders have a knack for the ball and it's not always technique or whatever, it's your mindset of thinking, `OK, if this ball comes off I'm going to get it, I'm going to get hands on it and make an opportunity for myself and grab it.'"

King is averaging 7.8 rebounds per game, sixth in the ACC in all games played. In conference games only, he's averaging 7.7, again ranking sixth.

"Night in and night out, he's been pretty consistent rebounding the basketball, and that definitely helps us," said coach Frank Haith. "It helps us with our transition game, we have an opportunity to run, but it also helps us get second opportunities."

More than one-third of King's rebounds come on the offensive board. At 6-9, 242 pounds, King has good size, but so do a number of other players in the league. The key to offensive rebounding, he said, is movement.

"You want to be moving at all times," he said, "and while you're moving everything coincides. You're looking at the ball and thinking, `Yeah, he's shooting from this angle and that's probably where it's going to come off, on the other side of the rim.'

"It's something that you learn because you're not always going to be the tallest player out there or the quickest or the strongest. You learn how to do things when you're not the most dominant physically out there."

In Miami's last outing, King had 11 rebounds and the Hurricanes won a road game over Virginia Tech. That raised their records to 3-6 in the ACC and 16-7 overall. Their next game is Sunday at Georgia Tech, a team they beat earlier this season, 78-68. The Jackets are another team fighting to break out of the jammed-up pack in the middle of the league, so the implications of the game are obvious.

"One win can put you back in the thick of things and one loss can put you out of things," King said. "So it's very critical that we come in with great focus and prepare to play a great team in Georgia Tech.

"They're pretty physical. Out of all the teams so far, they're probably at the top in physicality. You just have to go right at them. If you back down, if you show any signs of weakness, they're going to really embarrass you. You fight physicality with physicality."

King came to Miami by way of Durham, N.C., when the Hurricanes were still in the Big East. After a discouraging freshman season in which he played sparingly, King became a fixture in the lineup when Haith, a fellow North Carolinian, came in as head coach and Miami joined the ACC. King started all 29 games as a sophomore and all 34 as a junior, showing skill at rebounding, blocking shots, passing from double-teams to the open man and occasionally scoring.

Last year, he was rebounding better than ever (9.3 per game) when he suffered an injured wrist in the eighth game and missed the rest of the season. Miami applied for a medical hardship season, which was granted. But sitting out those 24 games and then waiting to hear from the NCAA wasn't easy.

"If you can put yourself in my shoes," he said, "you expected so much out of your senior year because it is your last go-around. Then you have to sit around and your future basically is in a board of trustees' hands. I heard the news (about the extra year) on April 12. It's a load off your shoulders. It's like you took a final exam, waiting to see if you pass or if you fail."

So, in essence, this is King's second senior season. As you might expect, his focus is to help the Hurricanes get into the NCAA Tournament, which would be a first for him. To do that, he knows his team must go on a run. And a way in which he might help that is to score more.

King has always been surrounded by high-scoring perimeter players and has never been asked to take on a big scoring role. The highest he has averaged was 8.8 points in his junior season. This year he's at 7.7. Over his career, he's one of those uncommon players with more career rebounds (765) than points (739).

Still, King had a string of six straight games in double figures early this season, which shows he's capable of putting up some offensive numbers. He has had only one double-figure game within the ACC this year, 12 against NC State.

Everyone who follows the Hurricanes knows about that game. After a deep 3-pointer by State's Courtney Fells tied the game with a few seconds left, King in-bounded the ball right to the Wolfpack's Gavin Grant, who scored to give the Pack the lead and the win.

It was an excruciating loss, particularly for King. Haith and the Miami coaches did their best to help him understand that one play didn't lose the game, that any number of plays throughout the course of regulation and overtime could have closed the game out for the Hurricanes.

Still, it hurt.

"It was a terrible feeling you can only imagine," King said. "Sometimes I don't think people understand that we as players see something that they don't see. We anticipate a lot and I was anticipating that one of my teammates would do one thing and he was anticipating that I would do another thing. That's what happened, so it was something that we learned from."

It's not like King has disappeared since then - he has averaged 8.0 rebounds in the six games since. But he has contributed only 5.2 points per game in the same span.

"I don't know the impact the NC State game had on him," Haith said. "We haven't really seen him come back and be the kind of offensive player I think he can be."

King believes he can contribute more in the scoring column.

"I know since that (NC State) game, my offensive game has dipped off a bunch," he said. "I need to assert myself more. Sometimes I'm not taking what the defense is giving me and making my own play, making something happen.

"Everyone goes through their slumps and some slumps are longer than others. This is something as a player you learn to cope with and get through."

While Haith would welcome a few more points from his center, he knows that rebounding is the thing he can always count on King delivering. And, in the long run, that's what the Hurricanes need.

"He's not scoring, I'm sure, like he wants to score," Haith said, "but he has not let that part of his game (rebounding) slip and that's what really helps us."

And you can stamp that in indelible ink.

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Bill Hass is a long-time observer of ACC sports. His career at the Greensboro News & Record spanned 36 years, from 1969 until his retirement in March, 2006. He is now writing "Bill Hass on the ACC" for theACC.com. His weekly columns will keep fans plugged in to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

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