Loyola Pair Have Own Extreme Games

Loyola Marymount seniors Haywood Eaddy and Silvester Kainga are college roommates who couldn’t be more different.

Eaddy is 5 feet 4, one of only two players that small in Division I basketball. Kainga (KANG-guh) is 6-11 and on pace to set the school record for blocks in a season. Eaddy is from Maryland; Kainga is from Kenya. Eaddy likes rap; Kainga’s a country man.

About the only thing they have in common is the team they play for. And that’s enough for second-year Coach Charles Bradley.

In his first season at Loyola Marymount, Bradley’s team won three West Coast Conference games and finished last in the conference. The Lions already have four WCC victories and are in a tie for third place.

Tonight, they play perhaps the biggest game in Bradley’s tenure when they host second-place Pepperdine at 7:30 in the first of back-to-back games against the Waves. The second is Saturday at Pepperdine.

Loyola Marymount, 9-11 overall and 4-4 in the WCC, is three games behind the Waves (16-7, 7-1) with six remaining.

The two biggest reasons for the Lions’ improvement? Eaddy and Kainga.

Eaddy, a childhood friend of the nation’s other 5-4 Division I player, Shawnta Rogers of George Washington, started the season by scoring 27 points against Long Beach State. But in that game, Eaddy suffered an ankle injury, sat out six games and struggled through the rest of the nonconference games.

“When Haywood went down early on, we struggled after that,” Bradley said. “We went a month and a half without our best player.”

But the shortest player in WCC history has scored at least 20 points in each of his last six games, over which the Lions are 4-2. His scoring average of 15.1 points is fifth in the WCC. His 5.4 assists a game lead the conference.

And Eaddy might also lead the conference in confidence.

“As I go, my team goes,” Eaddy said. “And scoring is not a problem for me. Twenty is low for me. If I’m healthy, I can average 30 in this conference. I’m not 100% yet.”

During Eaddy’s absence, Kainga stepped up. In the six games Eaddy missed, Kainga blocked 13 shots. And in the game Eaddy struggled most, scoring two points against Cal State Fullerton, Kainga blocked a school-record seven shots.

“Silvester helps us in the paint because he gets a piece of a lot of the action,” said Bradley of the player he considers the most improved in the WCC from a year ago. “He forces [opponents] into a perimeter game, and that helps us.”

But Bradley told Kainga long before Eaddy went down he would need to improve dramatically from a year ago, when he averaged a little more than eight minutes a game.

Kainga responded. He leads the WCC in blocks with 42, 13 short of Richard Petruska’s school record set in 1990-91.

“I feel good blocking somebody’s shot,” Kainga said. “I know that the next time he wants to score in the paint, he has to change his shot. And if he gets careless, I’ll send it out to the crowd.”

Kainga didn’t start playing organized basketball until his junior year in high school.

Kainga was recruited by Midland, a junior college in Texas, while in high school in Nairobi, Kenya. After three years at a university in Kenya, Kainga enrolled at Midland in 1995.

It was there he grew a taste for country music, something that is especially annoying to Eaddy.

The two were paired together before last season, their first at Loyola Marymount, and formed their own “Odd Couple.”

“I remember our first night together, we just started cooking,” Eaddy said. “And for whatever reason, we just started looking out for each other.”

Now, seeing the two players who have a height differential of 19 inches hanging out together has become a regular sight around campus.

“If you seen one of us, you probably see the other one too,” Eaddy said. “Some people still laugh at us and say we look weird together.”

They also spend a lot of extra time on the court, having gone through numerous one-on-one battles. Who’s won most of those battles, however, depends on whom you ask.

Eaddy does acknowledge that Kainga has beaten him with a crossover dribble.

“He crossed me over once, but I blocked his dunk,” Eaddy said.

“You didn’t block me,” Kainga said, laughing. “We went up and I scored.”

They’ve been together so much that perhaps they are taking after each other in games, as well.

Against San Diego last Saturday, Eaddy had a blocked shot, his second block of the season. Kainga has had at least one block in 18 of 20 games.

And against St. Mary’s the night before, Kainga had the ball at the top of the key with time winding down. He fired up the first three-point shot of his career, and it went in.

“In all my 15 years of coaching I’ve never seen that before,” Bradley said. “I think I put my head down in my lap [when he shot it].”

Bradley didn’t want to look at the shot, and Kainga didn’t want to look at Bradley after it went in.

“[Bradley] didn’t say anything to me,” Kainga said. “I didn’t want to even look at him because I was afraid to see how he’d be looking at me.”

But tonight, the Lions will have to get serious. The Waves have won six games in a row and a Pepperdine victory would essentially turn the WCC regular-season race into a two-team battle between the Waves and Gonzaga, 8-0 in the conference.

Eaddy and Kainga may have the two toughest assignments of the night.

Opposite Eaddy will be Jelani Gardner, an All-WCC selection last season who is averaging 14.1 points. And when Eaddy isn’t being guarded by Gardner, he’ll have to deal with Tezale Archie, who has earned a starting spot mainly because of his defense.

But playing against an All-WCC player may bring out the best in Eaddy. After finishing first in the WCC in steals, second in free-throw percentage, third in assists and ninth in scoring a year ago, Eaddy received no All-WCC recognition.

“I didn’t make honorable mention [last season], which means I didn’t get any votes from any of the coaches and I took that personally,” Eaddy said. “That’s why I go out and try to dominate every game I play in.”

Pepperdine Coach Lorenzo Romar knows Eaddy makes the Loyola Marymount offense go.

“He is a really good player and a really big part of what [Loyola Marymount’s] doing, despite his size,” Romar said. “They’re a high-powered offensive team and we’ve got to be able to defend very well.”

Kainga will be facing one of the best inside players in the conference.

Sophomore forward Kelvin Gibbs is one of only two players among the WCC leaders in scoring, rebounding and blocks. And in the middle, Pepperdine has a player who can match Kainga’s size in 6-11 center Nick Sheppard.

“You would have to say [Pepperdine is] the most talented team in the conference,” Bradley said. “They have some NBA talent.”

The Waves may have the talent, but both coaches agree the Lions, and more specifically Eaddy, have something to make up for that difference in talent.

“The one thing you can rest assured about a guy that’s 5 foot 4 at the Division I level is he’s got a big heart,” Romar said.

Said Bradley: “Haywood’s going to do whatever it takes to win. There’s no question he was meant to be here, meant to be a Lion. He’s got the heart of a Lion.”