What’s up with Jeff?
August 7th, 2008, 2:34 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Mark Heller
The cornerstones of Arizona State’s basketball team — Jeff Pendergraph and James Harden — are back, and, supposedly, better than ever. (Lisa Olson/Tribune)
Answer: Not very much.
Fall semester at Arizona State is a shade over two weeks away, and senior Jeff Pendergraph has spent his summer solstice eating (a lot), playing with his two snakes, visiting with his family, and five to seven hours per day doing various workouts and dominating open gyms.
He’s up to 242 pounds, and would like to be between 245 and 250 during basketball season.
In mid-June, he was one of 14 college players who took part in Amare Stoudemire’s Nike camp in Phoenix. Among his peers were former ASU teammate Christian Polk, who’s now at Texas-El Paso, and Arizona big man Jordan Hill.
Pendergraph went nuts on the Wildcats in Tucson in February to complete a season sweep, but the two are friends.
“We talked about it a little bit,” Pendergraph said. “He was like, ‘We didn’t have an answer for you.’ I was just ‘on.’ We joke about it.”
As for the Sun Devils, he’s been impressed with the development of sophomore-to-be big man Kraidon Woods, who barely played last season while gaining strength and adjusting to college.
Pendergraph fantasized about a front line of himself, Woods and Eric Boateng, meaning no player shorter than 6-foot-8.
“It’d be a mismatch everywhere. Boateng is too big, Kraidon is an athletic (power forward). If I was the (small forward), it’d be ridiculous. We’d be so big, it’d be the total opposite of last year. We’d go from biggest team to smallest team.”
Then there’s that James Harden guy, who’s lost nearly 10 pounds, worked on his jump shot, and spent time at the Paul Pierce camp in his native Los Angeles.
“I’m pretty impressed with how he’s done this summer,” Pendergraph said of Harden. ”I wondered if he’d rest on that. He’s got a mid-range jumper, he’s got a right hand, all the supposed weaknesses he was told to improve. It’ll make him so much better.”
No subject got him going quite like the prospect of graduating in December — which remains on schedule for — and only worrying about basketball for the rest of winter.
While trying to position himself as a mid-first-round NBA draft choice in 2009, he’ll have to find something to fill the time.
There’s only so much you can do with pet snakes.
“I have no idea,” he said of plans for the spring semester. “I’m not worried about it. Somebody will figure out something.”