[Rosiak's Blog] Interview with Dwight Buycks

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Interview with Dwight Buycks

Written by: Todd Rosiak


Milwaukee-area natives have been few and far between in recent years at Marquette University.

In fact, by the time Dwight Buycks arrives on campus as part of MU's 2009-'10 recruiting class, it will have been a full three seasons since the Golden Eagles had one on scholarship (Steve Novak, Brown Deer).

It will also have been six full seasons since they had a Milwaukee City Conference player in the fold (Robert Jackson, Milwaukee Washington.

They're trends that Buycks, a graduate of Bay View High School, will be more than proud to buck once he finishes up the 2008-'09 season at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa.

The 6-foot-3, 185-pounder will soon be leaving for his sophomore campaign at Indian Hills, where he's projected to be one of -- if not the -- most highly rated guards in the junior-college ranks.

I caught up with Buycks on Friday night, and here's what he had to say:

You orally committed to MU on June 16, right around two months ago. How have things been going since then? Everything's been good. I've been getting a lot of congratulations from everybody, and it's been an exciting thing for everybody in the town to see, for me being from Milwaukee to commit to Marquette and come back and play in front of all the fans. It's a warm welcome from everybody, and everybody seems ready and pumped up for it.

What does it mean for a native city, and a Milwaukee City Conference product, to be able to play collegiately in his hometown? It simply hasn't happened much over the past decade.  When I think about it, this is a big move for me. Because like you just mentioned, nobody really has done that in years, come back and play in their same hometown having had a good high-school career and all that. There's a lot of people that are surprised that I came home. They'll tell me, 'You made the right decision and everybody is going to be excited and looking forward to it.' When I sat down and thought about it, it was a big decision and I went with the right decision, and talked about it with family and everybody. So it was really nice.

You say a lot of people were surprised you chose to commit to MU. Did people expect you to commit to one of your other finalists, like Kentucky, Memphis or Tennessee, just because they're considered to be higher-profile schools? Yeah, there were a lot of people. Not coaches; just people that just asked, 'Why did you pick Marquette?' I'd tell them the reason, and then they were like, 'What other schools did you have after you?' and I'd tell them. And they'd be like, 'I mean, Marquette's not a bad decision, but going to Kentucky, Tennessee or Memphis, that's real right there. That's where it's at.' Stuff like that, like I should have picked Kentucky or something just because they're going off their name and their history, what they've been doing.

When you look at it, though, as a member of the Big East, MU has really closed the gap as far as the amount of exposure those other schools receive -- on national TV, at least. Yeah, you're right. People are kind of looking over that right now. They don't know that the Big East is one of the most competitive conferences there is, and at Marquette they have been doing good lately and been playing on TV all the time. But they don't really look at that. They just go off the background history with these top teams, their name and stuff like that.

You mentioned your family being able to watch your games in person was one of the major deciding factors when you announced your commitment to MU. Are your relatives still excited about your choice? Yeah, they're very excited. My mom is very excited because she's going up in her age and she hasn't really seen me play ball more than a couple times. It was a big decision based on my family and me, the type of program I wanted to play in. My mom was very excited when I told her I'd be playing for Marquette and be able to stay at home, because since I play out of town she doesn't see me that much. It'll just be good for her to be able to watch me at home, and she can come to all my games and support me. Then my family, they're all just pumped up and excited. They really haven't been able to see me play because I've always been gone out of town, or when I was in AAU I was always out of town. I never really played at home like that besides my high-school career, but the jobs they worked interfered with my games at Bay View High School. So the didn't really get to see me. They saw me in the papers and stuff, but everybody is very excited to see me come home.

With so much interest, will you have to become a ticket broker in order to get everyone in the door? Are you worried about potential distractions? No, I ain't in control of that. I'm only in control of my family. That is a distraction. My family has their tickets, and I'll leave the rest up to my coach. I'm not really worried about that because I'm man enough to not let anybody distract me. I'm bigger than that. I know how to put distractions to the side and not let them get to me and stop me from doing what I've got to do. It's not really a big thing. I know who has been in my circle since Day 1, and it's really locked in right now. So any outsiders would be no distraction to me, wouldn't even bother me.

What have you been doing basketball-wise and conditioning-wise this summer to stay sharp? I do different drills, work out by myself, condition myself up in the gym sometimes. Pick a day and me and a couple of my friends will go down to the lake and run, run stairs. I lift weights. Even though I haven't been playing with any teams I'm still in great shape because I'm playing every day and I'm working on my game every day. There's not one day I haven't played. I've been playing 2-3 times a day, individually working out in the morning. That's really how I've been staying in condition. Sometimes pick-up ball, but mainly just a couple people and get individuals going.

What are your plans at this point? Are you getting ready to head back down to Indian Hills? Yeah, I'm heading out next Saturday.

What will you be doing once you get down there, basketball-wise? When we get down there we get in our rooms and get our classes, and then that following Tuesday and Wednesday we're right in conditioning mode for about 2-3 weeks, and that's really good, gets everybody ready and stuff.

How have your academics been since you've been attending Indian Hills? Things have been going good. I've been buckling down, really focused, because I know what I'm trying to reach. So I've been taking everything vey seriously. I don't want to take any more detours and just go along with this basketball thing. We have support every day and everybody's in there focused, serious. There's no way I can get distracted. We're all on a schedule, and everybody has their own study time. There's nothing that can distract you from getting your work done.

What are your goals basketball-wise for the upcoming season? We've got a couple new pieces on the team, which will help us out a lot. The main goal is to get back to the tournament and win the whole thing. Last year we came close but fell short. So that's our whole team's focus, because we know how good we can be and how close we came to it. Seeing that all those teams we played last year were mainly sophomores and we had a team full of freshmen, there really ain't no reason for us not to take the whole thing. That's really our main focus as a team.

Recruiting rankings are totally subjective, of course, but would being ranked the No. 1 guard in junior college next season have any significance to you? It really wouldn't mean anything if I wasn't, but if I was I know it would mean I was working hard and learning new stuff from new coaches and learning the game a little bit more. That's all.

Are you friendly with any of the other members of your recruiting class? I only know one of them, and that's Jeronne Maymon. We text each other, we stay in contact with each other and stuff like that, talk about our seasons and how excited we are going to be when it's our turn to come there.



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