Greedy’s good with move to Texas Christian

Victoria Sun

Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2000 | 10:17 a.m.

Greedy Daniels never wonders if he could have become the player he has proven to be early this season if he had stayed at UNLV instead of transferring to Texas Christian after the 1998-99 season.

He already knows the answer.

"No," Daniels said in a telephone interview before diplomatically adding "Probably not."

"Because mentally, I was fighting (coach Bill) Bayno and the stuff he wanted me to do and that hurt me. On the court we couldn't see eye to eye. I know now, he was the boss and I know partly it was my fault. But it's all good now."

Make that very, very good.

The junior is leading 4-2 TCU in scoring with 18.2 points per game and is 11th in the country with 3.3 steals per game.

During a recent loss to Minnesota, Daniels erupted for 31 points and five assists.

Bayno is happy that his former player is doing so well.

"To this day, he's a kid I'm close with and we never had problems off the court," Bayno said. "He helped us win a lot of games and I'll always remember the things he did for me as a coach.

"As far as I'm concerned, he and I are going to have a relationship for the rest of my life. He is a good kid."

The numbers tell only part of the 6-foot-1 guard's evolution from a seemingly average college player to the one he always thought he could be.

Coming out of Cohen High School in New Orleans, Daniels was one of the top rated point guards in the country with a penchant for making incredible plays.

He averaged 21.7 points and 4.3 assists his final year of high school, earning him national honors. He was ranked 27th in the June edition of Basketball Weekly's top 100 prospects and played in the Magic Johnson Roundball Classic.

"I don't think there was anyone who didn't want Greedy," TCU coach Billy Tubbs said. "Everybody gave him a look coming out of high school.

"There were a lot of people that liked him."

But at UNLV, Daniels never flourished.

As a freshman he averaged 6.7 points and 2.8 assists and started 20 of 32 games. Though his numbers increased the following year (he averaged 7.4 points and 3.3 assists) he started only six of 29 games.

"I think in retrospect, I should have moved him to the two (shooting guard) the way he is playing at TCU, and we did try it some, but he mostly played the one (point guard)," Bayno said. "Sometimes things aren't meant to be.

"He was here at a tough time as well. We were playing him strictly at the one and we had Mark Dickel who knew the offense well already."

For Daniels, sharing playing time with Dickel (who graduated last year ranked third on UNLV's all-time assist chart) wasn't the problem.

"Coach Bayno and I got along; he's a great person," Daniels said. "We had a great relationship off the floor, but on the court our personalities collided.

"It wasn't that I wasn't getting enough playing time. I was a different type of player than what his system wanted. I was pretty flashy you could say. I liked to get out in the open court and have the ball in my hands and be able to contribute."

Daniels says Bayno had other ideas.

"He wanted to control the offense," Daniels recalled. "Keep it so that we could bang it inside to (Kaspars) Kambala and that game wasn't working.

"We had Kevin Simmons, (current NBA players) Keon (Clark of the Denver Nuggets) and T-Nes (Tyrone Nesby of the Washington Wizards) and these guys wouldn't get their touches.

"It was just pass the ball inside and let's hammer it inside."

More problems arose when it appeared Daniels wouldn't live up to the lofty expectations placed on him coming out of high school. He says they were compounded by the fact that there were internal pressures for him to perform.

"I never lived up to the expectations at Vegas," Daniels concedes. "Part of it was my fault, the immaturity factor, but I wasn't getting a lot of room for error, you know.

"In basketball, you make mistakes. I wasn't given a chance to grow. If I made a mistake, I felt it."

Near the end of the 1998-99 season, his sophomore year at UNLV, Daniels decided he wanted to finish his collegiate basketball career at another school.

Frustrated with not being able to play the style he thought was best suited for his game, he considered transferring to Cincinnati, Fresno State and almost ended up at Mississippi State.

Because he was a transfer, Daniels had to sit out last season. But he said that was a lot easier to deal with than he expected.

He spent the year absorbing as much as he could of Tubbs' system, learned how to be a better player and matured as a person.

"It was more of a sacrifice I had to make," Daniels said of his time away from the court. "I knew I had to make a change.

"Coach Tubbs just wants you to play basketball. I'm much happier now. Much happier than I was in Vegas. I got a new girlfriend, I'm under a new system.

"I'm just happy I made the change, I don't hold a grudge (against UNLV). I'm just happy now."

So far, Daniels has given Tubbs plenty to smile about.

Tubbs is careful not to build up Daniels too much and jokes, "There's not enough paper in your newspaper to print all of the things Greedy needs to work on." But in Daniels he knows he has a special player with a lot of potential.

"The first thing that I think sets Greedy apart from other people is he has great instincts for where the ball is coming from defensively," Tubbs said. "He has a great ability to know where the ball is coming from and I call it the ability to 'smell' the ball.

"He is an unusual player in that he can turn the ball over, then get it back by the time the other team reaches the front court. On a loose ball, he has just that knack of going and getting it. I don't think it's something you teach."

And those wild passes he used to make as a Rebel?

"I've learned control," Daniels said between laughs. "I still make my wild passes, but I put them on the money now."