http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2008/04/13/sports/02christo.txtChristopherson begins tour of colleges at Iowa State
By TODD SOMMERFELDT / La Crosse Tribune
Scott Christopherson spent Friday afternoon and Saturday morning in Ames, Iowa, playing basketball at Iowa State University.
It may or may not be his new academic and basketball home after having his request for a release from a scholarship at Marquette University granted on Thursday.
That’s why the former Aquinas High School standout embarked on a 6-hour drive to Ames on Friday after a morning class at Marquette and played 90 minutes of basketball with current players in the ISU program. After that, it was dinner, a bit of time to relax before bed and an early wakeup call for more basketball at 9 a.m. Saturday.
Christopherson hopes to visit Iowa sometime this week and possibly Minnesota and/or Butler eventually, but those plans have yet to be finalized. He may go through a similar routine.
The wheels for all of this were set in motion the day Tom Crean decided to leave Marquette to coach Indiana. It wasn’t something Christopherson saw coming, but it was an event he knew would change his future immediately.
“I knew I was going to ask to be released pretty quickly,” Christopherson said Saturday morning, “just because of the situation.”
Crean was the one who convinced Christopherson to commit to Marquette after his sophomore season at Melrose-Mindoro. Before he even took a class as an Aquinas High School junior, Christopherson knew his college future.
That’s what made Crean’s announcement, and the fact that players only learned of his plans through media reports, disappointing.
“I found out when everybody else did,” Christopherson said. “It would have been nice to hear it from him, but he did what he had to do. What happened, happened.
“The same people who want to criticize him for it wouldn’t pass up a chance like that at Indiana.”
Although Christopherson’s initial list includes the four teams listed above, it could expand. Aquinas coach Rick Schneider said that he didn’t even know how many schools contacted him since Christopherson’s release.
“There are a ton of schools interested in him,” said Schneider, whose list of recent contacts included UW-Green Bay, William and Mary, Bradley and many others. “They are very interested, too.”
Christopherson, a 6-foot-3 guard, doesn’t regret his initial commitment to Marquette one bit.
Yes, playing time was hard to find. Surgery on an injured knee in November made it difficult to make an early impression, and he wound up averaging 1.3 points and playing an average of 4.8 minutes per game. Christopherson, who averaged more than 22 ppg in both of his seasons at Aquinas, said his knee is just now getting back to 100 percent.
He thinks his experience at Marquette, built almost exclusively on practice time, will help him wherever he lands for the next phase of his career. That practice time, he said, was the equivalent of playing 200 games against top-level college talent.
“People don’t understand how good guys like Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews are,” he said. “When you are playing against the deepest backcourt in college basketball, you have to get better.”
Christopherson’s opinion is that he leaves Marquette, which was denied a berth in the Sweet 16 on a last-second shot by Stanford in a second-round tournament game, with more confidence as a player than he had when he showed up. He was pleased with his play in practice at the end of the season and hopes to build on that with his new team.
While he built most of his success in high school � he led Aquinas to two MVC championships and to the WIAA Division 3 state championship game as a senior � as a jump-shooter, Christopherson could also get to the basket at will.
That wasn’t the case when he joined the team at Marquette.
“When I first got there, it was intimidating,” he said. “I had questions. Can I drive the ball to the basket or hit a guy on a pick-and-roll at this level? It was hard, but I learned that I can do all those things.”
While he doesn’t know for certain where he’ll be showing those skills off, Christopherson said the rumor of a possible transfer to NCAA Division II Winona State University is just that: a rumor.
“A lot of people have asked me that, but I’ve never talked about transferring there,” Christopherson said. “It’s a great program, but somebody must have just decided to start something about that for some reason.”
Todd Sommerfeldt can be reached at (608) 791-8208, or at todd.sommerfeldt@lee.net
