SEATTLE – Ryan Appleby said he hadn’t even thought about it before it was pointed out to him. He doesn’t have any reminders of his clash with Aaron Brooks last season. But now that he does think about it, well, he still can’t quite figure it out.
What led Brooks, a Seattle native and Oregon’s point guard, to level Appleby with an elbow during last season’s Pacific-10 Conference Tournament? The blow to Appleby’s head left the Stanwood native with six stitches in his lip, and cast Brooks as a villain, a stigma he knows won’t be easy to escape.
“It’s going to stick with me the rest of my life,” Brooks told Eugene reporters. (He’s barred from speaking to Seattle media.) “But you can’t sit there and dwell on it.”
Brooks will be sitting in his mom’s house when the No. 7 Ducks (18-1, 6-1 Pac-10) play at Washington (11-7, 1-6,) at 8 tonight in Hec Edmundson Pavilion. He is barred from being in the arena, the final part of his punishment for elbowing Appleby. The punishment began with an ejection midway through the first half of Oregon’s Pac-10 quarterfinal win over Washington and continued with a suspension for the Ducks’ next game, a semifinals loss to California. Oregon then added to the conference-mandated punishment by suspending Brooks from this season’s opener against Lehigh as well as the Ducks’ game at Washington.
Brooks said he’s just thankful that Appleby didn’t suffer any serious, long-term injuries.
“I’m just happy that he is all right,” Brooks said. “If that’s my punishment for it, then that’s fine.”
Appleby, though, isn’t sure the punishment makes total sense. He said he holds no hard feelings toward Brooks, but wonders why Brooks is suspended for the game in Seattle and not the return game when the UW plays in Eugene as well.
“I think it was maybe more for him because the fans would be on him,” Appleby said. “That was the only thing to me that was peculiar.”
At the time, Brooks said he was retaliating for a shoulder to the mouth that Appleby had delivered to him, but Appleby said he was simply clearing some space by swinging his arms, which he’s allowed to do. On the next trip down the court, Brooks floored Appleby as the UW guard ran around a screen.
“I thought I was just making a regular basketball play, I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody,” Appleby said.
Appleby said he received a letter of apology from Brooks immediately after the game, but hasn’t spoken to him since. Brooks was a frequent visitor to Washington’s summer open gyms, but he did not participate this past summer.
Washington players know it was out of character for Brooks, who starred at Seattle’s Franklin High School, to act in the manner he did.
“I know Aaron, he’s not that type of guy at all,” Washington forward Jon Brockman said. “But your emotions can take over in a game.”
The loss of Brooks is a big one for Oregon, which has hopes of a Pac-10 championship and possible No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Brooks is a leading candidate for Pac-10 Player of the Year, leading the league in scoring (18.4), ranking fifth in assists (4.7) and fourth in steals (1.7) and leading the league in minutes played. He’ll be replaced in the starting lineup by Chamberlain Oguchi.
Oregon coach Ernie Kent said Brooks has matured over the year, in part because he became a father in the offseason. He said the loss of Brooks is a loss for everyone.
“The unfortunate thing is I know how much Aaron Brooks agonized over what he did, how bad he felt,” Kent said. “I know how much he loves Seattle, he talks about that all the time. … It’s unfortunate that there’s so many people up there who won’t get the opportunity to see him and see him at his best right now.”
Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said he would vote for Brooks as the league’s player of the year if voting took place today. He too said the entire incident is unfortunate.
“He can’t play, it’s unfortunate the incident happened,” Romar said. “But hopefully both teams can move on.”
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