Patiently waiting

It's hard to miss 7-foot, 238-pound junior forward Kelly Olynyk, even when he's sitting on the Gonzaga bench during games. And odds are that you won't ever see him sitting for long.

"In games, Kelly's the most energetic guy on our bench," redshirt junior Mike Hart said. "He's always keeping us going. He's all ‘team.' Any play you see us make, he's up off the bench, excited and ready to cheer on his teammates. He's been supporting us like that all season."

Olynyk is taking a redshirt year for 2011-12, meaning that he'll have two more seasons of eligibility starting next season. But until last October, that wasn't necessarily the plan. At that point, the Kamloops, B.C., native was getting ready to contribute to what is widely regarded as one of the top frontcourts in the nation.

But with 7-footer Rob Sacre, 6-foot-8-inch Elias Harris, 6-foot-9-inch Sam Dower and 6-foot-8-inch freshman Ryan Spangler all jostling for minutes, in the end there simply weren't enough to go around.

"I talked with the coaches about what's best for me, my future and my development as well as the development of the program," Olynyk said. "We have two NBA-caliber bigs here with Rob [Sacre] and ‘E' (Elias Harris,) so you can only play so many people at once. The next couple of years, I'm going to have a great opportunity to fill their void. All those reasons were factors in my decision."

A concussion suffered in practice the week before Kraziness in the Kennel was the final verification that it would be best to take a year off, Olynyk said.

"The decision wasn't fixed in stone up until that point, but I then I had that concussion in practice. I was on the weak side, and I went to block Sam [Dower's] shot, but he pump-faked and I flipped over his back and landed right on my head. It was pretty bad."

It took Olynyk a month of vigorous rehabilitation and training before he could begin participating in full-contact drills. "Once you're done with the symptoms, you can't just jump in right away; you have to go through a series of stages," he said.

Thus, Olynyk became one of three Gonzaga players redshirting this year, along with freshman guards Kyle Dranginis and Chris Sarbaugh.

Back in November, Olynyk had admitted in a Spokesman-Review article by Jim Meehan just how tough it was to be out there on the McCarthey Center court before games, dressed not in his customary team-issued warm-ups but rather in business casual. For a player accustomed to competing on the biggest stages (both Olynyk and Sacre played with the Canadian national team at the 2010 World Basketball Championships in Turkey), hearing that wonderful din of 6,000 fans jumping and howling and knowing he couldn't step out onto the court and contribute must have been nothing short of unbearable.

But Olynyk, who averaged 5.8 points and 3.8 rebounds in 2010-11 while shooting 57 percent from the floor, made a conscious decision to make the most of this redshirt year. 

Whether that's during team practice, where teammates and coaches alike praised Olynyk's hustle and determination, or during team warm-ups before games — where Olynyk will step in and help the big men by delivering passes into the low post so they can work on their moves in the paint, or staying behind after the last few fans have filtered out of McCarthey and it's just he and an assistant coach working on his outside shooting, he is always looking to make his teammates and himself better.

"A whole year of development will be good for me," he said. "I want to get bigger, stronger and faster. I'm trying to develop my inside game and get that down pat. Also, I want to make sure I have a stroke that's dialed in from deep so defenders can't sag off me or go help in another area of the court."

Gonzaga director of basketball operations Jerry Krause said he's been most impressed by Olynyk's development of a Swiss-army knife set of skills. "[Kelly's] trying to become an inside-and-outside player, and a better defensive player, too. He's always been a good rebounder, but this redshirt year is the perfect situation for him to become an all-around player."

Krause believes that Olynyk's skills are becoming honed just as Olynyk is finally growing into his body, which will make him even more of a threat on the offensive and defensive end.

"He's a young player, and he had a great growth spurt late (Olynyk was listed at 6'10" 205 pounds in his last year at South Kamloops Secondary School before coming to GU), and I don't think he's grown and matured into his body. So that's a great thing that he's grown and matured physically."

Late-blooming big men have a penchant for being matchup nightmares at the next level. Lamar Odom, who also plays a little NBA basketball when he's not on TV with the Kardashians, experienced an 8-inch growth spurt in high school that saw him shoot up from a 6'2" point guard to 6'10" forward whose true position is indefinable. He can handle the rock like a point, and bang down low like a post. It's no coincidence that with that kind of rare versatility, Odom is in his 13th season in the league.

Or look at 6-foot-11-inch Brian Butch, a 2003 McDonald's High School All-American, who redshirted his freshman year at Wisconsin in the hopes of getting stronger ahead of the rigors of Big 10 basketball. By his senior season, Butch had grown from a gangly talent into a chiseled inside-out threat who earned First-Team Big 10 honors.