In between his off-season duties as the Detroit Shock’s head coach and a color analyst with the Detroit Pistons, legendary ‘Bad Boy’ Bill Laimbeer took time out of his busy schedule to make a trip to Syracuse to see his daughter, Keri, play Saturday.

But with the way the Orange performed in its 59-43 loss to Cincinnati, a matchup featuring two teams in the bottom of the Big East ladder, he couldn’t have been impressed one bit.

Laimbeer is certainly aware of the team’s struggles. He has followed SU’s season by listening to the games on the Internet and he keeps in touch with his daughter. But this time, Laimbeer saw first hand just how poorly Syracuse can play. He also took time to see the team practice Friday, visited the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications where Keri hopes she can study broadcast journalism, and spent time catching up with her daughter at Scotch & Sirloin later that evening.

Laimbeer rarely experienced such failure when he helped the Pistons win two NBA championships in 1989 and 1990 and coached the Shock to a WBB in his first season in 2003. He sympathizes and is mindful, though, of the struggles SU has been experiencing.

‘You have the tendency to get your head down a little bit,’ Laimbeer said. ‘She knows where they’re at and how they’re doing right now. She wants to change it. But no one person can change it. It has to be a collective thing. I keep telling her task is to make sure everybody keeps their head up. Keep working hard and it’ll turn around one day.’

Keri played a limited role Saturday, first coming off the bench with 15:52 left in the first half. She only played 11 minutes and only played for a few minutes at a time. Syracuse head coach Keith Cieplicki and Laimbeer laud Keri’s eagerness to find other players open and involve them in the game.

‘Feeding them their egos,’ as Laimbeer calls it, Keri prefers playing behind the scenes and creating plays, whether it be a pass or a screen, to help them become open. On Saturday, her efforts failed to create scoring opportunities for others. She also left with 5:49 left in the game to ice up her aching back.

‘I’m not frustrated at all,’ Keri said. ‘I know I’m a freshman. I have a lot to learn and I have a lot of work to put in. I’m perfectly happy with my situation. I just want to keep getting better.’

As someone who hates to lose, similar to her father, Keri is taking the Orange’s 7-11 record and 0-7 performance in the Big East rather well. Picking up that competitive fire from her dad, it just makes her want to keep plugging away. That competitive juice interested her in basketball in the first place.

Concluding Keri simply followed her dad’s footsteps is too simplistic and flat out wrong. Initially, Keri swam and played softball. But in fourth grade, she switched from the swimming lanes and the mound to the hardwood.

Keri remembers vividly what made her end her softball career. Pitching that day, her softball coach conducted warmups with her beforehand. The first ball he threw tipped off Keri’s glove and smacked her in the face. Keri’s coach grounded the second ball and the ball bounced into her knee.

‘My mom wasn’t too happy with the coach the rest of the day,’ Keri laughed.

Keri was always exposed to her dad’s success in the NBA. She watched old tapes of his playing days with Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman. She became used to people seeking autographs from her father anywhere they went. But Laimbeer never forced or pressured her daughter to play basketball. It just eventually came to her.

After a successful run with AAU under her dad’s direction, Keri gained interest from Syracuse, Cincinnati and TCU while playing for Detroit Country Day. During that time, Bill Laimbeer adopted a similar hands-off approach. Coaches were recruiting Keri, not Bill. Neither wanted the father to have more attention than the recruit. They didn’t want to have to deal with large crowds anytime Keri visited a campus. Keri also wanted coaches to give her an assessment based on her skills, not because of her dad.

‘It’s not their spot,’ Laimbeer said of parents who become overly involved in their children’s future. ‘It’s not their place. The kid is choosing the life of where they want to be. We stayed completely out of it.’

Laimbeer also prefers not to put his two cents in about how Cieplicki and his coaching staff run the program. As a former high school coach, Laimbeer knows how aggravating it can be when parents become another concern.

‘Here’s the reality, if Keri’s parents weren’t who they were and they were a pain in the rear, Keri probably wouldn’t be here,’ Cieplicki said. ‘We don’t want families like that, quite frankly. This job is hard enough, complicated enough, where we don’t need that kind of influence on the team.’

‘She’s a hard worker,’ freshman Brittany Smith said. ‘It’s definitely hard to battle her in practice. She brings a lot to the team. When she shows what she can do, she’ll be a good player.’

Published on January 20, 2006 at 12:00 pm