UW Men's Basketball | Darnell Gant's choice to redshirt seems to be working out

When the Washington Huskies hit the road this season, as they do tonight when they play at Stanford, Darnell Gant usually stays home. Like any other fan, he finds a radio or TV to keep on the game.

Because Gant is eligible to play he would be allowed to travel, put on a uniform and sit on the bench if he wanted. But Gant prefers not to. He doesn't want to step inside any visiting Pac-10 arenas until he can do so as a player.

"I'm holding that, waiting for next year, so that everything can be brand new," he said. "So it will be like a real freshman year."

So hidden away, absent on trips, sitting on the end of the bench in street clothes at home games, Gant can seem like the forgotten man of the Huskies.

But when UW coaches talk about next season, and how the team will improve from a 2007-08 season that continues to teeter to disappointment levels, Gant is foremost on their minds.

Gant, a 6-foot-8 forward from Los Angeles, will join four high-school players who have signed letters of intent to give UW five new players next season, a group coach Lorenzo Romar says will add skill, athleticism and scoring.

"Out of the five, four are shooters," Romar said. "They are five guys that understand the game pretty well."

Romar considers Gant as one of those shooters, alongside incoming guards Scott Suggs, Isaiah Thomas and Elston Turner Jr. (The other recruit is power forward Tyreese Breshers).

Romar said Gant "is progressing pretty good. He's got a lot of energy and a lot of passion. He's a forward who can step outside and face the basket or play with his back to the basket, and he can really run the floor."

Those are qualities Gant has displayed only in practice, however. But while he said he's itching to show his game to the public, dealing with the redshirt season was made easier by the fact that it was his call to sit out. Romar said he has never asked a player to redshirt, only made the option available for some.

It was Gant who approached Romar a few days before the season about redshirting.

Gant, who also had offers from Kentucky and Oregon and was No. 12 on the Long Beach Press-Telegram Best in the West list in 2007, was expected by most observers to play right away.

But he said he made the decision to redshirt a few weeks into preseason practice, feeling it would be the best long-term move for both himself and the team.

Part of the reason was academics. Gant admits "it was hard for me to get here [becoming academically eligible to enroll]" and said he thought having a year to concentrate on school would ensure he got off to a good start with his grades. He said that's worked out so far, saying he has a 2.5 grade-point average. He's a self-taught piano player and plans to major in music.

But he also wanted to get bigger and stronger and improve his game before playing. He said he weighed 197 pounds when he arrived at UW last summer and is up to 213.

"I just felt I wasn't making plays happen," he said. "I wasn't doing the things I thought I should be doing. By the time next year comes, I will be doing those things."

Gant said he takes at least 1,000 shots a week to improve his range and plays pickup games when the team is away.

"I'm getting everything ready that can keep me where I am, being a versatile player who can go inside and out and cause mismatches," he said.

The only apparent hitch has been a nagging hip injury that was recently diagnosed as a stress reaction and has limited his practice time lately. But Gant said he should recover fully.

Romar considers the prospect of adding Gant and Breshers to a front line that will return all current players as well as the influx of guards, and thinks the program is on firm footing.

"There will be some healthy competition [for jobs next season]," he said. "I've always said there are two types of competition. There's the one where no one is really doing anything so you can't figure out which one to go with, or the one where everyone is playing at such a high level that it's hard to pick who should be in there. I think it will be more of [the latter]."

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com