By Thomas Pope
Assistant sports editor
Copyright 2009 / The Fayetteville Observer
Reprinted with permission

BUIES CREEK - Jonathan Rodriguez has dreams of being a college coach when his career as a basketball player comes to an end.

If that notion comes to fruition, he will almost certainly, at some point, run across an opposing player whose production is maddening. That player may not be particularly quick. He may not be a sure-fire marksman as an outside shooter. He won't have the size to overwhelm the player assigned to guard him.

Yet despite all those apparent shortcomings, more often than not, that player is one who can rarely be held in check.

In other words, Rodriguez will face his mirror image.

"He's pretty indefensible, really," said Rick Byrd, the head coach at Belmont University for the past 28 seasons. "We've never been able to defend against him with just one person."

Byrd and the other Atlantic Sun Conference coaches won't have that particular concern after this season. When Rodriguez plays his final college game five months from now, he will leave behind a slew of school records that will be difficult to surpass.

He's been an all-conference player three times. He's already eighth in league history in rebounds, and is on pace to become just the third 2,000-point scorer the A-Sun has produced. Among NCAA Division I players about to tip off their senior season, Rodriguez trails only Luke Harangody of Notre Dame and James Florence of Mercer in career scoring.

Rodriguez grins as he recalls his recruitment to Campbell, a school with an on-campus enrollment of 3,034 that's a long way from his hometown of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, and even the high school he attended in Miami, Fla.

"I didn't know who Campbell was. Was it a soup?" he joked.

Hofstra, Duquesne, Drexel, Southern Utah and Montana State were all in the hunt to sign Florida's 1-A Player of the Year. Florida and other D-I majors gave him a look, but didn't like his shooting motion or upper-echelon athleticism.

In no small degree, Campbell won out for the Calusa Prep star because it was in dire straits. The Camels were 10-18 when Rodriguez was a high school senior, and that came on the heels of a 5-49 record the previous two years.

"I wasn't for sure that I could start as a freshman or play at a lot at those bigger schools," Rodriguez said. "That was one of the main reasons I came here - I saw there were spots available at my position."

Campbell head coach Robbie Laing was happy to have Rodriguez onboard, though he admits he had no clue just how effective his new recruit would be from the get-go.

"He's got a lot of instinctive qualities you can't coach," Laing said. "He's not impressive in drills, athletically. If you go down the list of strength coaches' measurements of (weight) lifts and agility, he's at the bottom. He doesn't have a body type that scares you.

"But with the ball in his hand in a basketball game, he's just good. He just knows how to play."

Laing says that Rodriguez is the best passer he's ever coached, period. That includes his stints as an assistant at Auburn, Clemson and Kansas State, and a first-round pick in Georgia Southern's Jeff Sanders.

"He can think 'around the corner' - meaning he can see the play developing. He's two passes ahead," Laing said.

"He's exceptional against double teams and special defenses. I almost relish those nights when opponents do that because that helps us; there are three of them left to guard our four. He's got a great scouting report on our team and plays to kids' strengths. He understands who shoots well, who dribbles well, and very seldom does he put a guy in a position to have to do something he can't."

Rodriguez was a first-team all-conference player as a freshman and sophomore. In his second season, he led the league in scoring at 20.9 points per game and was second in rebounding average at 10.1. Last year, his average dipped to 15.6 - still good for second-team all-conference - as he went to the free-throw line far less frequently. He's packed on additional muscle since last season for the sole purpose of absorbing more contact and earning more trips to the charity stripe.

Byrd, whose Belmont teams have won 20-plus games for four consecutive seasons, is effusive in his praise of Campbell's keystone player.

"He's simply one of the most efficient basketball players - particularly on the offensive end - of anybody I've coached against in this league," Byrd said. "He's sneaky-quick, and a phenomenal, sneaky-great scorer against guys inside that are bigger than he is."

A year ago, the Camels finished the regular season with a flourish, winning a season-best four consecutive games to wind up 11-9 and mid-pack entering the tournament. That's when the season came to a screeching halt with a 30-point thrashing at the hands of Lipscomb.

The loss was a painful reminder to all of the Camels' players that there's still plenty of work to be done if they want to join A-Sun foes such as Belmont, East Tennessee State and Jacksonville in postseason play - and Rodriguez desperately wants to leave Campbell with something more memorable than his individual achievements.

"We know how good we can be and how hard we've worked. We've got to take this one game at a time and go from there. At the end of the day, if we've worked hard enough and been lucky enough, maybe we can go" to a postseason tournament, he said.

Laing put the season ahead in a different context for his best player: "What do you think people are going to remember - how many points you scored or whether you won?"

Assistant sports editor Thomas Pope can be reached at popet@fayobserver.com or 486-3520.