That name should bring back nightmares for a generation of Shocker basketball fans. Pressey tormented some of WSU’s greatest teams when he played for Tulsa from 1980-82. He went 4-0 against WSU in his two seasons. Whenever Tulsa needed a steal or a basket in those game, Pressey seemed to deliver. As a Shocker fan, you hated him for beating your team. You also admired the way he played. Pressey, who played 11 seasons in the NBA, returned to Wichita last week as an assistant for the New Orleans Hornets. The first memory on his list was the 1981 game when Tulsa beat No. 14 WSU in double overtime after trailing by five points with under 30 seconds to play in regulation.
Q: What do you remember about playing in this arena?
A: I was telling some of the other assistant coaches that some of my greatest college basketball games were here. Us being down, I believe it was five points with 25 seconds to go. It was an exciting moment, being on the road and winning like that against a good team. Xavier McDaniel, I think he was a freshman my senior year. Levingston and Antoine – those guys were monsters. They were stacked. It was a good basketball game to watch because both teams played very fast and were very aggressive in the paint. That made it exciting basketball.
Q: Describe playing at Tulsa for coach Nolan Richardson.
A: He was a father figure for me, leaving home from (Richmond) Virginia and going to Western Texas (for junior college) playing two years there for him and then going to the University of Tulsa. When you get far away from home, you need a father figure and he was it. On and off the court, he set the tone – not just for me but for all his players. I always believed he did that at whatever university he coached for. He was going to teach his players to be young men. Basketball was going to take care of itself.
Q: What is it like coaching Hornets star Chris Paul?
A: He allows you not to have to coach very much. He’s just a talent. He’s an extension of the head coach. He’s our leader. He makes the game easy for a lot of players out there on the floor and therefore he allows our team to have some kind of success. It depends on how the rest of our players step up their level of play as to how far we go this year. I like our chances. We injected some young players, including Julian Wright from Kansas. We put (Wright) in the starting lineup because we wanted to put him with our best players and give him a chance that those mistakes he makes, our veteran players can help him get over those.
Q: Phil Pressey, one of the nation’s top high school point guards, is headed to Missouri to play for former Tulsa teammate Mike Anderson. How did your son end up with the Tigers?
A: Coach Anderson is not just a mentor from a coaching standpoint, he’s seen my son grow up. They already had a relationship. It’s a perfect fit. He plays his style of basketball. My whole thing was I wanted to make sure he goes somewhere where the coach teaches him about growing to be a young man. I didn’t care about basketball. He’s a very good basketball player and that’s going to take care of itself.
Q: Is Phil a defensive stopper like his father?
A: He’s a pretty good defensive player, but he’s a Chris Paul. He has that mind-set and is that kind of caliber player. He’s a game-changer. That’s why Coach Anderson was so in love with him. He’s an exciting player, he’s an ooh-and-aah player. Every team would love to have one of those.