ASU’s style lands another believer

A teacher and high school basketball coach in Missouri, Dickie Coy was still awake at 2 a.m. one night. So he sent out some e-mails to various college coaches on behalf of his younger brother Johnny.

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At 6 a.m., he had a reply from Arizona State assistant Mark Phelps. At 9 a.m. they were on the phone with one another.

Two days later, Phelps was in a Missouri gym watching Johnny play.

A few months thereafter, Johnny became ASU’s second commitment for the 2008-2009 school year, joining Phoenix Pinnacle’s Taylor Rohde. Both can sign national letters of intent starting today. Both are expected to in the next week.

ASU offered no grand promises to help woo kids to Tempe. No egos. No NBA talk. No skipping class. No skirting the rules.

To use a Herb Sendek term, it’s the Sun Devils’ way of weeding out “knuckleheads.”

“That’s the kind of coach I want to play for,” said Coy, who bypassed offers from Washington State and Missouri, as well as some interest in Kansas because ASU was there early and often.

ASU landed a top-25 recruiting class, with this year’s freshmen featuring All-American James Harden, Ty Abbott and Jamelle McMillan, all of whom said they were attracted to ASU because of its recruiting style.

Those previous, present and future classes shared Coy’s sentiment.

“They tell it like it is. They speak the truth, don’t feed you b.s. and go straight to the chase,” said Rohde who averaged 22 points and nine rebounds per game for the Pioneers as a junior. “They said they wanted me and this is what I needed to work on. Most coaches didn’t tell me that. I hadn’t heard it anywhere else. It put me in reality.”

Reality — according to the recruiting experts — puts this year’s ASU freshman class among the top 25 nationally, and next year’s duo of Rohde and Coy as solid complementary pieces of the pie.

It’s another appeal of Sendek and his staff. The Sun Devils had little interest in USC phenom O.J. Mayo because of the possible personality conflicts and the thought he’d choose the NBA after one season.

Rather, he’d find slightly less raw talent in exchange for personality, academics and self-improvement, a philosophy shared by a core group of Harden, McMillan, Abbott and Duke transfer Eric Boateng.

“Now all anyone can talk about is how solid the base is,” said Scout.com analyst Dave Telep, who goes back more than a decade watching and covering Sendek’s teams. “Harden could leave the program and the base is built. It’s always bigger than one guy.

“He’s much more dynamic than the average person would give him credit. In 14 to 15 years he’s proved he knows his audience.”

McMillan went to some Sendek summer camps when the coach was at North Carolina State, and, being the son of Seattle Sonics coach Nate McMillan, immediately caught attention with his skills.

Perhaps unknowingly, Jamelle also drew comparisons to future recruits because of his family’s pedigree and faith in Sendek’s staff.

Even the Maui Invitational coaches talked about during McMillan’s recruiting visits wasn’t another one-liner.

“...Everything I’ve heard from other guys and everything (Sendek’s) told me has been right on point. There hasn’t been a false statement. The guy wouldn’t even talk to me at tournaments because of the rules when other coaches didn’t care.”

Coy and Rohde will be the latest to sign themselves over to the Sun Devils but feeling as if they’ll be gaining something more than a scholarship.

“Other places wanted to get me there and not really make me a better player,” Rohde said. “I wanted to go to a place where I could get better and not just be there for the sake of being there.”

Johnny Coy

School: Benton High School, St. Joseph, MO

Ht/Wt: 6-foot-7, 190 pounds

The numbers: 28 points, 12 rebounds per game.

The skinny: Late-bloomer who grew four inches and doubled his high school output in the past year; Drew interest from Washington State, Creighton, Kansas and Missouri. Ranked No. 24 among small forwards by Scout.com.

Taylor Rohde

School: Phoenix Pinnacle

Ht/Wt: 6-foot-8, 215 pounds

The numbers: 22 points, 9.5 rebounds, 1.5 blocks as a junior

The skinny: Was an all-state forward in Division 4A-I as a junior, but has changed his diet and exercise regiment and lost 30 pounds. Needs to work on defense, ball handling, quickness and outside shot to be productive in Sendek’s system.