Devonne Giles is under siege–in the Texas Tech medical training room.
He’s getting his ankles taped for practice right now, but the to-do list is long. Six stitches–three over and three below one eye resulting from an opponent’s elbow–are checked. His left knee, beset by tendinitis, is getting a tight wrap. And there’s the protective pad on his right thumb, not fully healed from a pulled ligament in November.
“It’s been pretty rough,” the center/forward said. “I’ve had a couple of injuries here and there, but I wouldn’t say it’s really taken a toll. I’m still playing hard every game.”
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Giles has little choice, since the Red Raiders need him on the floor as many minutes as possible. Pain isn’t an option, because Tech has few options behind him on the bench.
When Tech chooses to use a big lineup, Giles has two backups. One, senior walk-on Joey Hawkins, has played college basketball for exactly 39 days. The other, true freshman Damir Suljagic, averages 9.7 minutes per game.
Giles’ main backup, John Ofoegbu, quit the team early this month. Since then, Giles has fouled out of two games, and No. 25 Texas Tech (15-5, 7-2 Big 12) has had to hold on late for two victories. Teams know how important Giles is to the Raiders.
“He played exceptionally well,” Colorado guard Marcus Hall said. “I told the guys we had to get him in foul trouble.”
At 6 feet 8 inches and about 230 pounds, Giles isn’t even Tech’s biggest player. Hawkins and small forward Darryl Dora are an inch taller. Hawkins is also about 20 pounds heavier.
But on offense, Giles is essentially all Tech has in the lane. Averaging 12.8 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.0 blocked shots per game, Giles is quicker against the Big 12’s bigger big men, but he takes some punishment too. For this, Tech has been rewarded often at the foul line; Giles is an 85 percent free-throw shooter (69 for 81).
“He’s made some strides,” Texas Tech coach Bob Knight said. “His ability to withstand the physical rigors of the game still has a lot of improvement that’s necessary. At times, consistency is a big problem for him. He scored 17 against Oklahoma but went 1-for-5 from the floor against Colorado.”
Giles’ 52 turnovers also lead Tech. The problem that cursed him at times in two years at Seward (Kan.) Community College, an inability to block out for the defensive rebound, still haunts him. Then there’s the foul thing.
“He did that here,” Seward coach Dave Brown said. “He’d go for a steal 40 feet from he basket. That combination of over-aggressiveness and [on-court] stupidity, God bless, isn’t a good mixture.”
At Seward, Giles always found a way to rise above both–so well, in fact, that he was an All-American before arriving at Tech last season. In the first tape Knight saw of him, a game against Barton County College, Giles scored 21 points and grabbed 22 rebounds. He grew nearly 3 inches while at Seward and always seemed to have ice packs on his knees.
“He was growing the whole time he was here and always had pains in his legs,” Brown said. “But he started putting on that weight. We had him up to 235 at one point.”
As he blossomed into an NCAA Division I player, Giles began showing off a nice 15-foot jump shot for recruiters. He considered returning to New Jersey to play for Rutgers or Seton Hall but decided he needed to get as far away as possible from his hometown of Newark.
“I needed to be far away so I wouldn’t be running back and forth from home,” Giles said. “That way I could focus on basketball and school. It was a culture shock, but spending two years in Kansas wasn’t that different [from Lubbock].
“I need to have better judgment and not pick up cheap fouls. I need to be in the game down the stretch with us short up front. I do need to cut down on [fouls].”
More than ever, Giles is worth more to Tech on the floor than on the bench.