Juttua Samuelista paikallisessa...
Haanpaa is already known as a 'pure shooter,' but he's hard at work to become a complete player
January 11, 2007
BY MARK LAZERUS Post-Tribune
His teammates were just lounging around the gym -- a few were flinging up some haphazard layups, a couple were grabbing drinks and a few others were simply relaxing on the bench. Practice was over.
Well, for everyone but Valparaiso freshman Samuel Haanpaa. He was still on the floor, hard at work.
On the far end of the court, he was working with assistant coach Bryce Drew. Drew was teaching Haanpaa to dribble away from his body.
"I have a habit to just dribble next to me," Haanpaa says. "And that way you can't go by people. You need to push the ball, dribble away from your body."
Seems like a pretty rudimentary lesson -- even borderline insulting -- for a guy who starred on the Finnish national team, averaged 27.4 points per game as a high school senior in San Antonio, was recruited by major Division I colleges and is deemed by Drew one of the best shooters in the entire country and a potential NBA player.
But Haanpaa doesn't see it that way.
There have been practices where the 6-foot-8 guard has casually drilled 10 or 11 3-pointers in a row during water breaks. There have been stretches in games where he's appeared poised to do the same.
He knows he can shoot. Heck, everyone in the conference knows he can shoot.
But everyone in the conference also believes that's all he can do. Haanpaa's out to prove them wrong.
He wants to shake his image as a stand-still jump-shooter with little to no ball-handling skills, marginal defensive skills and no desire to mix it up down low.
And that takes work.
"We want him to develop into a complete player," head coach Homer Drew says. "We want him to improve his skills. We're working on his speed and quickness. We're working on his rebounding and his defense. We're working on his dribbling. We're working on his passing. Right now, he's got more turnovers than assists (32 to nine). That's one of his goals -- to have more assists than turnovers. We know Sam can score, that's a given. What we want to do is broaden his game."
It's hardly unusual for a freshman to be something of a one-trick pony, a raw talent in need of seasoning. But Haanpaa's not being schooled in anonymity -- he's playing nearly 23 minutes a game, learning on the fly.
It's made for some rough nights -- four-turnover, five-point efforts against Creighton and Oral Roberts, for example. But in the long run, Bryce Drew thinks the sudden exposure will expedite Haanpaa's education.
"I think it's better for him, because it lets him learn first-hand," Drew says. "It's one thing if you tell someone something. But until they actually experience it, they don't get a lot better at it. Going into a game and seeing what he has to work on, it helps him at practice -- he knows what he has to do and at what speed he has to do it."
His improvement has been dramatic, if inconsistent. Haanpaa gets into the game because of his shooting ability -- he's averaging 10 points per game and hits 36 percent from beyond the arc -- but he's staying out there because he's getting better at everything else. At Centenary last Thursday, Haanpaa was a horrific 1-of-11 from the field. Yet he played 28 minutes.
"He kept playing against Centenary because he had nine rebounds and two assists," Homer Drew says. "He's becoming a more complete player."
Of course, don't expect Haanpaa to be spending a lot of time in the post anytime soon. While his coaches feel that at 6-8 he can play any position on the floor -- he even saw a few minutes at center against Butler -- Haanpaa just wants to dabble down low, not dwell.
"That's not the way I enjoy the game," he says. "I always play outside, away from the basket. That's my game."
Indeed, Haanpaa's outside shot is his meal ticket. Bryce Drew equates him to the Philadelphia 76ers' Kyle Korver, and says that's a role Haanpaa could play in the NBA sometime down the road if he develops a well-rounded game to complement his brilliant shot.
And it is brilliant -- a work of art, and one Haanpaa is always willing to put on display. He's the proverbial black hole on the court -- ball goes in, shot comes out.
"He loves any type of shot, and he's got the range to enforce that," Homer Drew says. "As a freshman, you admire his courage. He's always willing to take the big shot. There is no shot that Sam does not like."
And there's almost no shot Valparaiso doesn't want him to take -- even on nights like his last two, when he was a combined 1-of-16 from the field.
"We don't care if he's 0-for-15; if he's got a good look, we want him taking No. 16," Bryce Drew says. "He's a pure shooter."
It's that sharp-shooting ability that landed him a spot in the Men's First Division in Finland and on the Finnish national team, where he played alongside VU teammate Shawn Huff. At the 2006 U20 European Championships, he led the 7-1 Finns with 17.3 points per game.
It was also his smooth shot that prompted him to leave Finland for Cornerstone Christian in San Antonio for his senior year of high school. American college basketball was the only path that allowed him to both play and get an education, so he made the move to Texas to get noticed.
It worked. He averaged 27.4 points, 11.6 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 4.1 steals at Cornerstone Christian, and was hotly pursued by major programs such as Colorado and Oregon. But he settled on Valparaiso because he'd get to play immediately -- and because they didn't want him to be just an outside-shooting specialist.
"I came as a shooter, but they wanted me to be more than just a shooter," Haanpaa says. "They wanted me to be a complete player. That's what I want, too."
That's evident by the extra time he's putting in after practice -- Bryce Drew teaching him to dribble better, Luke Gore teaching him to post up, Homer Drew convincing him to be patient and pass first as he adjusts from a 24-second European shot clock to a 35-second college clock.
The effort is paying off. For example, countless hours at the free-throw line turned a 4-of-19 start to the season -- "horrendous," Homer Drew says -- to a sparkling 27-of-28 from the line since.
Just step one of what Haanpaa and his coaches hope will be many.
"He's a worker, a real gym rat," Drew says. "He's in here all the time working on dribbling, passing, rebounding, shooting. You can see that he wants it, he wants to get better at every aspect of the game. He wants to be known as more than just a shooter. And that's the most encouraging thing of all."
Contact Mark Lazerus at 648-3140 or mlazerus@post-trib.com