IS LIVE CHATTING EAGLES-BEARS
MIAMI - After graduation, Temple center Sergio Olmos says he is going home.
"That's the idea, to go back to Spain and play," he was saying. "I don't know at what level yet, but that's the idea. I want to play in Spain if I can. I've been away from home for a long time."
He is a kid who wanted to see America, to experience it all, to live the life. He is from Valencia, whose local pro team once featured Pepe Sanchez, the former Temple point guard. Connections were made. A bilingual recruiting process began.
Arriving as a project, a 7-foot project, Olmos will leave as a helpful starter on a team that is making its second straight NCAA Tournament appearance today in a game against Arizona State. He has played some great games - particularly against Tennessee, the Owls' signature regular-season win - and some not so great. He has been in the starting lineup, then out of it, then in again.
It always has been a process for Olmos, a journey.
"I've changed some," he said. "I'm still shy. I still think I'm a nice guy. But I've improved my game in a lot of aspects, and I've improved as a person, too. I guess it has been a big change . . .
"It was hard, but it's also one of the reasons I came here - to experience that, to live on an American campus. That's something that not many people can do over there. And it was hard. The life here, it's a lot different than it is over there in Spain.
"It's been hard in ways. It's been really tough. I don't get to go home very much, only in the summer for a little bit. When I came here, I wasn't even 18 - I was still 17. So it was hard.
"But last year, A-10 champions," he said. "This year, same thing. It's been a great experience. I think it's been worth it."
The Tennessee game was his best - 19 points, seven rebounds - but there is an increasing consistency to his work. In the Atlantic 10 Tournament, he had 14 points and nine rebounds against Saint Joseph's in the quarterfinal and the same numbers against Duquesne in the final.
There are moments when you watch him and see a little bit of basketball-as-a-second-language, but his play is solid. Because of him, for example, Temple was able to deal with St. Joe's Ahmad Nivins with a lot less double- and triple-teaming than most teams - and, by the way, Temple beat the Hawks three times.
Olmos really has come a long way, as a player and as a kid.
"Well, I think as a person first . . . if you said to me I need to go to dinner with any one of our players tonight and break bread with them and have a conversation that would be mature, enlightening, profound, I would choose Sergio Olmos," said Fran Dunphy, his coach. "I think he's got a great way about him. He has a great sense of who he is, and I think that's always a pleasure to watch and see in somebody his age that knows who he is.
"I think as far as his basketball and the evolution of it, he has done a terrific job. He had a tough start in that he missed the first four games for us [with an ankle injury]. That didn't help him much. But then he really started to come on. I think his game against Tennessee at home is as fine a game as he's played as a collegian. Then he hit a wall a little bit and we went with a little different lineup so he was coming off the bench, and he wasn't
real happy about it, and I was glad that he wasn't happy about it because I think that helped him work a little harder and get back into the lineup. I think since then he's really played extremely well for us in both facets of the game.
"On the offensive end he's had opportunities to score, and he's so long that he changes - he not only blocks shots but he changes a number of others," Dunphy said. "I think he's really developed into a very good basketball player at this point, and I'm glad that he's our starting center."
An easy way to get Olmos to smile is to mention how he has improved physically. You get him going and he talks about hard work and he talks about the confidence that it brings.
And you should see the look on his face when he says, "There are days you feel like you can play against anybody." *
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