COLUMN: Enough hype on Hodgson

From Eric Goldstein's "Upon Further Review," Fall '95 So it is understandable the amount of attention being paid to Rob Hodgson, the one-time Hoosier, who transferred out of Indiana upon learning coach Bobby Knight was planning to redshirt him his freshman year. Hodgson is the third all-time leading scorer in New York high school history and was obviously considered a top Division I prospect by virtue of his Indiana scholarship. But it is a year later, and Hodgson is still undecided as to where he wants to finish (or start) his collegiate career. He has narrowed his options to either Penn or Rutgers, and his father says the two schools are running neck-in-neck in the race to nab the 6 foot, 6 inch forward. But you already know all of this if you have been reading The Daily Pennsylvanian for the past semester (or anytime during the past week for that matter). Almost every day, the DP has included some sort of Rob Hodgson update, not unlike the daily Deion Sanders watch on ESPN SportsCenter that preceded Prime Time's signing with the Dallas Cowboys. The problem with "Hodgson Watch '95" is that Rob Hodgson has done nothing to merit our interest. Sure, he would make a fine Ivy League player, maybe even a great one. But his indecisiveness is troubling. What has he been doing for the past year -- sitting in his room pondering which school to attend? I realize deciding on a college is a big step in one's life, but a year? And what about the Penn admissions department -- don't they have some rules about showing up for, oh, the first month of class? Forgetting about basketball for a moment (which admissions seems incapable of doing), how can Hodgson possibly make up two, three or even four weeks worth of schoolwork? The average Penn student couldn't, much less a student who spends hours upon hours every week in the gym and weight room. Equally disturbing is Hodgson's lack of a timetable. Nightly calls to Hodgson's parents result in runaround answers like, "He hopes to make a decision in the next couple of nights." We have been hearing that response since June. Lost in the shadow of the whole Rob Hodgson recruiting fiasco is the transfer of another 6-6 forward: George Mboya. Unlike Hodgson, who would be eligible to play for the Quakers this season, Mboya, who comes to Penn via Rice, will have to sit out the entire 1995 campaign. Mboya was expected to be a starter for the Owls this season and should be a strong addition to the Penn program come 1996. But if the DP is your only source of Penn information, then this is the first you have heard of George. No, he does not come to Penn with a lifetime's worth of scrapbook entries and the expectations of 10,000 undergrads on his shoulders. For Mboya, just arriving is enough. Perhaps this obsession with Hodgson stems from the recent graduation of Penn's greatest ever hoops player, Jerome Allen. Ever since the final buzzer sounded in the Baltimore Arena last March, Quakers fans have been searching for the next Jerome Allen. For the time being, the Palestra faithful are satisfied with the electrifying duo of Ira Bowman and Tim Krug. But Bowman and Krug will be moving on next spring, and for the first time in five years, the continuation of Penn's Ivy League dominance may be in jeopardy. So here is the savior of the Quakers hoops program. Hodgson is our knight in shining armor and our prince riding in on a white horse all rolled into one. The problem with this evaluation is that Penn's program is not heading toward Columbia in the standings any time soon. With George Zaninovich, Jed Ryan, Frankie Brown and, now, George Mboya waiting in the wings, Quakers coach Fran Dunphy should not have too many sleepless nights. Will we knock off Nebraska in the NCAA Tourney and beat Michigan at Crisler Arena? Probably not. But neither will Princeton, Dartmouth or Brown. With or without Rob Hodgson, Penn will survive. If Hodgson decides to enroll at Penn, then I'll be in the first row at the Palestra cheering him with the rest of you. But should he pick Rutgers over us, let's not cry too hard. We seem to be confusing Rob Hodgson with another former Hoosier who left IU over a dispute with Knight (among other reasons) two decades ago. Of course, Rob Hodgson is no Larry Bird.