The Barometer Online

Issue date: 10/17/06 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Sam Leinen Sasa Cuic didn't pick up a basketball until he was 15, but it's paid off for the forward from Croatia, as the junior is one of the top returning players in the Pac-10.

Media Credit: Peter Strong Sasa Cuic left home when he was just 15 to further his basketball career and now finds himself as the top returning scorer for the OSU men's basketball team.

Growing up in socialist Yugoslavia, basketball certainly wasn't the first thing on Sasa Cuic's mind. To him, the sport was not a euphoric escape from the realities of a war too close to home, nor did he see it as a ticket out of his home country. In fact, the kid didn't even pick up a basketball until he was nearly 15 years old.

"I remember hearing air-raid sirens and watching TV and seeing the bombings," Cuic recalled. "A couple times we had to go into shelters. It was pretty rough."

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Yugoslavia was dissolved into several smaller states, among them Croatia, from where Cuic hails. "Croatia surrounds Bosnia and borders Serbia. Bosnians are Muslims, Serbians are orthodox, and Croatians are Catholics. It was always bound to break," Cuic said. Serbian tanks stopped a mere 30 miles from his town of Rijeka. He doesn't talk about his experiences as though he wants sympathy or respect; instead he comes off as humble and is always mindful of his good fortune.

"That's where the war was," Cuic said, referring to the Serbian front line. "I was lucky in that sense. Even today, many parts of Croatia haven't been rebuilt, and probably never will. I never really gave basketball a thought."

Then his neighbor offered him a ride to school basketball tryouts. Cuic, only 14 years old, had a love-hate relationship with the sport in the beginning.

"I quit twice in the first month. The coach called me and said 'I want you to come back, I will teach you the game.' The first two months all I did was learn how to walk, how to hold a basketball - I shot like this in the beginning," he laughed, making a pushing motion with both hands extending from his chest. "Body-wise I was garbage."

Nevertheless the kid from Croatia, who is fluent in five languages, was a fast learner. After playing only a year, he was selected to the youth national team. But even that wasn't enough. "After a while the competition was dull, and I wanted to challenge myself more," he said. "So I went to Italy."

Italy would become the starting point for Cuic's path to Corvallis. "I thought about coming to the United States a lot when I was younger and about playing professionally," Cuic said. "A former Beaver player, Teo Alibegovic, was my teammate on a squad in Italy. He kept saying it was a good choice to go to America." It was Alibegovic who called OSU assistant coach Jeff Reinert, urging him to come watch Cuic play. The Beaver coach was on the next plane to Amsterdam.

"He had good size and is a quality player," Reinert said about what attracted him to the then 20-year-old international player. "He has the ability to score either in the box or outside on the perimeter."

Cuic traveled across the Atlantic to play for a school he had never seen and live in a country he had never visited. "I saw pictures and videos on the Web," he said, "But obviously nothing can fully prepare you."

The son of a doctor and a steel worker, Cuic has always been close to his family. With e-mail and phone calls filling the voids created by living oceans apart, he had yet to feel disconnected from the world he left behind. Never was a bond tested more than it was this summer.

"You know, I don't get to go back very often," Cuic said. "I left home when I was 15 to play in Italy as a sophomore in high school. Since then there have been no Christmases, no New Years. I am home for one month over the summer and that's it."

He paused, momentarily hesitant, then continued, "My dad had been sick for two years. He finally passed this summer. I was home helping my mom and the rest of the family. I spent every day in the hospital with him. He died two days before I was supposed to leave. It was like he knew. If there is such a thing, it was good timing."

Losing a parent could be as difficult an experience that life has to give. But Cuic never lost his poise. That sense of composure is a skill that serves him well on the court as well.

Cuic is the highest returning scorer for OSU, averaging nearly 14 points per game, and led the entire conference in 3-point percentage, making close to half his shots outside the arc. It's his versatility that makes him such a threat to opposing teams.

Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar said that this season much of the Huskies' gameplan will be defending Cuic.

"We will assign our best defender to cover him," Romar said. "He is so effective in putting the ball on the floor, and he is much better in the paint than he was two years ago. We may think about double-teaming him if necessary."

Cuic welcomes the extra pressure.

"If they are double teaming me, that just means that someone else is open," he said.

Impressive statistics aside, Cuic is perhaps best remembered for a "shot" that was actually meant to be a pass. During the Civil War game in Corvallis last season, he tapped a Chris Stephens' miss hard against the top part of the backboard. Somehow the ball ricocheted back into the hoop, extending the Beavers' lead to three and sealing the game.

"I meant to knock it back to Chris because he was wide open," he said with a laugh. "But it was all skill, man."

These are skills the Beavers are going to need this coming winter. OSU, which finished 5-13 last season in the Pac-10, lost a significant contributor last season in Nick DeWitz and is a very young team.

"We have a lot of players who have a lot to prove, not to mention that we host two of last year's Final Four teams," Cuic said, referring to games against LSU and UCLA.

Cuic doesn't regret his choice to come to Oregon, calling it one of the best decisions he's made.

"Sasa has the potential to become OSU's second all-time leading scorer," Reinert said. "Which would make him in very select company."

Not bad for a college kid who picked up a basketball just seven years ago.

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