Hidden Gem
January 14, 2003 12:53 PM | General
January 14, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – D’or Fischer had a tough decision to make. He was just finished with his second season at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and he was looking for a bigger school to showcase his developing basketball talents.
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| Center D'or Fischer ranked second in the country in blocked shots last year with an average of 4.4 blocks per game. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
Fischer’s first inclination was to return back to Philadelphia and play at St. Joseph’s but the school didn’t have a scholarship available. He visited Maryland but he felt there were too many of his friends there to stay focused. He was also contacted by Providence.
Then he decided to pick up the telephone and call West Virginia University. He looked at WVU’s roster on the Internet and knew that the Mountaineers were in need of players -- particularly big men.
What he didn’t know was the turmoil the basketball program had went through before John Beilein was hired last April. The first Fischer heard of it was when he came on a campus visit last summer.
“After I called them and they brought me up on my recruiting trip that’s when they sat me down and told me everything that was going on here,” Fischer said. “My mom still felt comfortable with me coming down here so I committed.”
Fischer’s decision to come to West Virginia last summer was the first sign that the storm was beginning to subside for Mountaineer basketball.
The 6-foot-11 center was an honorable mention all-Southland Conference selection last year as a sophomore after averaging 9.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 4.4 blocks per game. He tallied 133 blocks for the season and ranked second in the nation in that category.
Fischer has two of the three triple-doubles produced in school history, and once scored a career-high 25 points against Texas San-Antonio. He broke the NSU record for blocks in a game with 13 against Southwest Texas and was just one shy of the NCAA record of 14 shared by four players, including Navy’s David Robinson.
A year earlier as a freshman, he helped the Demons to their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance after winning the Southland Conference tournament. In the NCAA tournament play-in win against Winthrop, he scored 10 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked nine shots.
Once he saw the tape of the Winthrop game, Fischer began harboring the notion of transferring to a bigger school.
Rick Pitino was a guest commentator for CBS during the game and raved about Fischer’s raw athletic ability. Fischer had also heard through the grapevine that Pitino might be interested in taking him at Louisville if he should ever decide to transfer.
“The thing that I will always remember is that he said I could play at the next level and that I could play anywhere in the country,” said Fischer. “That’s when I knew I could do it.”
D’or Fischer’s eventual journey to the Big East Conference was quite unusual. However, it pales in comparison to his trek to Northwestern State.
Fischer attended four different high schools in four years due to family relocations. His last school Upper Darby, located in the Philadelphia suburbs, proved to be the worst experience from him. Although he was 6-7, he rarely played and eventually quit the team.
“People were amazed that I didn’t play,” he said. “My coach never gave me time to play and he said I would never make it in basketball.
“Unfortunately things didn’t work out right,” he added. “I wasn’t comfortable with the school, I came in the middle of the year, I was the tallest thing there and people weren’t used to seeing that, and I was shy. It just went in a whole different direction than I thought it would.”
After high school graduation, Fischer was presented with a graduation gift to visit his older sister in Columbus, Mississippi. He decided to stay there for the summer. During that time he grew another four inches and soon became interested in playing basketball again.
He found out about a junior college showcase and decided to give basketball one more try: “I went there and played terrible,” he admitted. “I didn’t make a shot.”
But Northwestern State coach Mike McConathy liked what he saw in Fischer and offered him a scholarship. Fischer first had to complete some classes to become eligible and worked on his game some more at a military base near his sister’s house.
“They knew right then that I had the talent, they just saw that I needed to be toughened up,” said Fischer of his afternoon pickup games with enlisted men. “Every day they would work with me, they said some of the meanest things to me but they told me it was out of love. At the end of each game, they’d say ‘D’or you’re going to make it’ and I just used that to get better.”
Today Fischer is one of the hidden gems in a West Virginia basketball program quickly rising from the ashes of an 8-20 season last year.
Once the Mountaineer coaches got a first-hand look at Fischer’s athletic ability, his enormous wing span and his soft shooting touch, they knew their 2003 recruiting class was a great success.
Basketball strength and conditioning coach Mike Barwis says D’or has made remarkable physical progress.
“When he first came here he was a pretty frail individual,” Barwis said. “He was a great athlete but he was pretty raw in terms of strength and explosiveness.”
Fischer never had access to a regimented conditioning program and it showed.
“He came here weighing 218 pounds and he was squatting only 135 pounds,” said Barwis. “Now he’s squatting over 400 pounds and weighs in the 230s. He needs to be about 240 or 245 by next season.”
In just five short months, Fischer has become one of the team’s best-conditioned athletes. He broke Gordon Malone’s vertical jump record for forwards and centers with a leap of 35 inches. That means without a step he reached 11 feet 7 inches -- or more than a foot-and-a-half above the rim. With one step he’s easily two feet above the rim.
“He could put his head into the rim if he wanted to,” Barwis marveled.
Fischer has dramatically improved his cardiovascular capacity as well. His first attempt at the mile run resulted in a time of 6:08 which, according to Barwis, is “not too bad for a guy standing almost seven feet tall.” Now his time is down to almost 5:20.
“He likes to work,” said Barwis. “He’s even called me on Sundays to come in and get in some extra work. He’s just a great kid.”
Although Fischer can’t play this season due to NCAA transfer rules, he can practice. He’s used that time to get accustomed to his teammates and learn more about the Big East.
“I get to watch and see the things that I need to improve on,” he said. "This is a great time for me to watch the other teams, see how physical it is and to get prepared for next year.”
Despite the inactivity, Fischer is happy with his decision to come to West Virginia University.
“I’m glad to be here and I love the coaching staff – they’re all great guys,” he said. “I’m blessed to be in the situation that I’m in right now.”
Fischer is also delighted with his team’s progress. The Mountaineers are a surprising 9-4 heading into Tuesday night’s game against No. 3-ranked Pitt.
“People always want to make predictions,” he said. “My high school coach told me that I would never, ever play Division I. So when people say those things I just look at it as motivation and I think our team is the same way. They’re motivated by what the magazines said about them and about what other coaches predicted we’d do in the league this year. I’m very, very proud of them.”
There’s a growing suspicion among close Mountaineer basketball observers that West Virginia fans will soon become very proud of D’or Fischer, too.
