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Freeman makes himself a tough opponent

By Nathan Fox Daily Planet Correspondent
Tuesday March 12, 2002

It isn’t fun to face DaShawn Freeman on a basketball court. Even when you’re winning. 

Midway through the first quarter in a NorCal playoff game versus Oak Grove (San Jose), St. Mary’s High is trailing. Freeman’s opposite number, Oak Grove point guard Jade Davis, has already dropped a 3-pointer, and then another short jumper, over Freeman. 

But Freeman, looking much bigger than his 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds might indicate, is the one who is grinning.  

This is frightening. Freeman is brazen. Freeman is brash. Yes - and he is bearded. 

All beard and teeth now, Freeman is smiling at Davis. And talking to Davis – intensely – from close quarters. Between plays Freeman is all over Davis, trailing him. Touching him. Standing too close, jawing. Getting in his face. And Davis is starting to get rattled.  

After the game: What were you saying to him, DaShawn? 

“I can’t really say that [in the newspaper],” Freeman says. “I was getting in his head a little bit, seeing where he was at mentally. You do that. Guess I got to him, and after that he didn’t really play a part in the game.” 

Freeman’s attack goes on for several minutes. Then, shortly before the end of the half, Freeman is on the bench, catching a breather. His replacement, Tim Fanning, although he strikes a much less imposing figure than Freeman (his teammates call him “Babyface”), immediately continues Freeman’s mental assault on Davis. 

Waiting for an inbounds pass, Fanning stands so close to him that Davis’s face touches the hem of Fanning’s jersey. Freeman’s earlier intimidation has brought Davis to the boiling point, and now, with only slight provocation from the much smaller Fanning, Davis finally loses it – he shoves Fanning, thus drawing a technical foul. 

Freeman, after the game, laughs and says that he wasn’t watching when Davis shoved Fanning. “I missed that,” Freeman says. “I know he wasn’t trying to push me, though.” 

Indeed not. The baby-faced Fanning calmly converts both free-throws, and Davis departs the game shortly thereafter. Davis sees only limited action in the second half – he scores eight points before his technical foul and none thereafter – and St. Mary’s comes from behind to defeat the Eagles handily. Freeman has beaten Davis – and St. Mary’s has beaten Oak Grove. 

“[Davis] just couldn’t handle it,” teammate Simon Knight says. “He was getting too mad ... I guess DaShawn just scared him out there.” 

Freeman’s bravado is a perfect complement to his counterpart in the St. Mary’s backcourt, the businesslike John Sharper. But while Sharper and Freeman are equally capable of beating you on a basketball court, you would vastly prefer to be quietly dismantled by Sharper than abused, blatantly, by Freeman. 

“That’s because he’s DaShawn Freeman,” says St. Mary’s head coach Jose Caraballo. “He has that reputation. He’s a real ‘get after you’ type of player.” 

Beyond the intimidation, Freeman has a wealth of skills – watch him: bringing the ball across the mid-court line, bearing straight down on a retreating defense, Freeman lifts his lead foot forward, and up, somehow pointing at the defender: there is a slight hesitation in this position, a pose; and then a blur – the basketball flashes back and forth between the legs once, twice, more – and he is gone. 

A spin, and the defender is shaken, flying off in quite the opposite direction as Freeman. A drive, an acrobatic bucket. Two points. (He averages 11 per game.) 

Or: a slash through the middle, and a two-handed pass, backwards over his head this time, through a forest of defenders and into the waiting hands of Knight. Identical result: two points. (And an assist for Freeman – five per game on average.) 

Or: a Freeman steal (four per game), and then, on the break, just two steps across the center line, a one-handed baseball-style bounce pass - floating low, weaving between countless pairs of running legs, both offensive and defensive - right on the money to a streaking Sharper. Another two points. 

Freeman’s St. Mary’s High career ended Saturday night with a 72-57 playoff loss to powerhouse Oakland Tech, a well-fought game in which Freeman scored 10 points and had eight assists in the first half alone. 

Next stop, college. Freeman will be taking his considerable skills on the road. Where would he like to be? 

“I like medium-type weather,” he says. “Like it is here. I don’t like too hot or too cold.” 

Perhaps he’s in for a bit of a surprise as he heads east on I-80 this fall – Freeman is heading to the 110-degree summers and frosty winters of Sacramento State. 

I wanted to go to a school where I could play, and where I would be appreciated,” he says. “It’s a good school, too – they have good academics.” 

As the No. 1 recruit this season for a guard-starved Sacramento State team, Caraballo believes Freeman will start as a freshman. But Freeman, for all his audacity on the basketball court, is more reserved off-court. 

“Nothing’s given,” Freeman says. “Hopefully I will earn it. I’ve just got to work hard.” 

One gets the sense that he will do just that. Somebody better warn the guards around the Big Sky Conference – DaShawn Freeman is grinning already.