SEATTLE — Hard as it is to believe, Jon Brockman thought about an individual stat once in his illustrious Washington career.
When Lorenzo Romar recruited Brockman from Snohomish high school, the UW coach sold Brockman on the idea that he could break the school’s freshman record for rebounds in a season.
“I remember coming in here I was trying to go after the freshman record,” said Brockman, as team-oriented as players come.
Brockman finished that season with 215 rebounds, enough to lead the Huskies, but not enough to break Mark Pope’s freshman record.
“I didn’t get it, and that was the last thing I thought about stat-wise,” Brockman recalled.
But while he hasn’t been thinking about personal stats, Brockman has been piling up rebounds at an impressive rate, and if he has a typical game today, he’ll become Washington’s all-time leading rebounder during the Huskies’ game against Oregon in Eugene.
Brockman currently has grabbed 1,044 rebounds in his career, seven less than Doug Smart accumulated in the late 1950s. While he thinks the idea of holding the record is, “pretty cool,” Brockman is hardly one to make a big deal out of the record he’s about to break.
“It’s an honor,” he said. “It’s something that when I’m older it’s going to be a lot sweeter, but even now it’s a huge honor.”
But while Brockman is the type to downplay an individual achievement, his coach continues to be impressed by the senior forward.
“I think it’s remarkable,” Romar said. “This program has been around a long time. I know that freshmen weren’t eligible (until 1972) and all that, but you look at some of those numbers back in the day and Jon is going to be the No. 1 rebounder in history. I think that’s pretty impressive.”
And the coach that once encouraged a recruit to shoot for a more modest freshman record isn’t at all surprised that Brockman will end up with a more impressive mark in the UW record book.
“He could rebound in his sleep,” Romar said. “If you had the power to do it and you just threw him in an NBA game tonight, he’d rebound. He rebounds, period. … He’s going to do that no matter where you put him.”
Brockman would much rather earn a team honor — like an NCAA tournament berth — in his final year than an individual one.
“No question, getting back to that tournament is something that I want to happen more than any record,” he said.
A road sweep against the Oregon schools this week could go a long way toward that goal, which just got a little bit tougher after a triple-overtime loss at home to California on Saturday. Both Romar and his players say the Huskies have learned from that loss, which featured several costly mistakes down the stretch, but have not dwelled on it.
“When we came in here Monday, for the most part that game was behind us and we were ready to move on and start focusing on the Oregon schools,” Brockman said. “We know that we can’t get Saturday back, but we know that game’s going to come back around in the second half of the Pac-10s. … We just can’t get held up too much on the fact that we lost. We’ve got to bounce back and learn from what a happened Saturday.”
Thomas still learning: Freshman guard Isaiah Thomas had one of the best games of his young UW career Saturday, scoring 22 points, but he also had a blunder in the second overtime period that helped California come back to win when he fouled D.J. Seeley to set up a three-point play.
“I should have known the situation,” said Thomas, who averages 15.7 points per game, the eighth-highest total in the Pac-10 and best among freshmen. “I should have just been away from the play anyway, that’s what coach talked to me about. I’m gonna learn from it. I’m a freshman and I’m still learning every game, every practice.”
Turner may return: Freshman guard Elston Turner, who has missed Washington’s first three Pac-10 games with an ankle injury, could return against Oregon today.
“There’s a possibility he will be available to play,” Romar said.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on UW sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
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