Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

The Education of DaJuan Summers

Image Contributor
DaJuan Summers

DaJuan Summers is 6-foot-8 and an exceptional athlete. He can dribble with the ease of a guard, he can thread bounce passes between defenders with precision, and he can effortlessly bury shots from all over the court. The man is also capable of throwing down thunderous slam dunks.

Summers knows that he has the physical gifts to excel. Now he wants the decision-making skills to take his game to another level. The junior forward from Baltimore says his primary focus over the offseason has been on improving his basketball mind.

“I’ve been more acute to the mental aspect of the game,” Summers says. “Knowing when to score, when to attack, when to get rebounds, how to affect the game in different ways – that’s been the biggest thing for me this offseason.”

Summers’ mental maturation is the latest step in a career that has seen him go from a chubby sixth-grader who spent most of his time on the bench to a preseason all-Big East selection. Along the way, he has impressed those who have known him best with his determination, a quality that his coaches say was instilled in him by his mother, Twana Summers.

Early Challenges

Summers says that the sixth grade marked the low point of his basketball career. Though he always had a knack for shooting the ball, he was not particularly quick or athletic at that stage of his life. Things got so bad that he decided to take a year off from the sport.

“I was short and round and I wasn’t getting any playing time,” Summers says. “I was upset about that. I knew how to play, I just didn’t know how to contribute.”

Fortunately for Summers, he grew six inches during his year-long hiatus. After that growth spurt, the sport became much easier for the slimmed-down seventh-grader.

“I still had my shooting ability, so I just started working on big man skills and trying to get in better shape,” Summers says.

His work started paying off. Two years later, Summers made it onto McDonogh School’s varsity roster as a 6-foot-4 freshman. Former McDonogh Head Coach Matt MacMullen says that he was immediately impressed with what the mild-mannered young man showed him in practice.

“What stood out that first year was just how competitive he was and how great of a player he wanted to be,” MacMullen says.

cDonogh had a varsity squad made up of mostly juniors and seniors at the time. The best player on the team was a 6-foot-5 senior named Mike Popoko, who would go on to play for Stony Brook University. MacMullen remembers Summers challenging Popoko every day in workouts.

“Popoko was bigger and stronger at the time, but DaJuan never backed down,” MacMullen says. “We knew that DaJuan was going to be a great player not necessarily because of his ability, but because of that drive he had inside him to be a great player.”

Anthony Lewis, who coached the Cecil Kirk AAU team Summers played on throughout his high school career, also took note of Summers’ determination early on.

“You could sense right away something about his work ethic,” Lewis says. “He was a workaholic type of kid who put in the time and the effort and the hours to get better.”

Both MacMullen and Lewis say that Summers got his willpower from his hard-working single mother.

“DaJuan’s mom is a very strong person,” MacMullen says. “She was there when he needed help, and she made sure he made the right decisions.”

acMullen calls Summers’ mother “his foundation,” pointing out that she taught him to persevere and to never make excuses.

“Knowing how hard his mom works and the type of person she is, I think that probably motivated him to work his tail off,” MacMullen says.

Adds Lewis: “He’s anchored by his mom. All of the accolades should go to her for raising him right.”

High School Dominance

Though Summers made strides during his sophomore year at McDonogh and cracked the team’s starting lineup, it was not until his junior year that he really began to stand out. MacMullen says that Summers looked like a new man on the first day of practice of his junior campaign.

“He had gotten so much stronger,” MacMullen says. “He had really started to fill out. And he was so much more athletic.”

acMullen points to one game early in the season as Summers’ coming out party. McDonogh was taking on D.C.-powerhouse Gonzaga, and as luck would have it a member of Georgetown’s coaching staff was in the stands to check out the rising star.

“DaJuan was a beast in that game,” MacMullen says. “He had like 24 points and 17 rebounds, and he had never done that before. At that point we realized, wow, he’s going to be something special.”

Summers went on to be named Baltimore County’s player of the year by the Baltimore Sun – a rare feat for a junior – while leading his team to the conference championship game. He averaged 29.2 points, 11.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists as a senior and once again brought home player of the year honors.

As Summers made a name for himself on the hardwood, he was playing two different styles of basketball depending on the time of year. While he competed on his school team, Summers was asked to play center and handle most of the squad’s scoring. When he played AAU ball for Cecil Kirk during the summer, he played a more wide-open, fast-paced game meant to showcase his athleticism. MacMullen explains that although the McDonogh coaching staff wanted to develop Summers’ skills, their main goal was to win basketball games.

“What we needed to do to win games was get DaJuan the ball down low,” MacMullen says. “He was by far our best player, so we needed him to be a scorer first and a passer second.”

Neither DaJuan’s experience in McDonogh games nor his play for Cecil Kirk fully prepared him for Georgetown’s Princeton offense, which is more deliberate and requires precision passing. Yet Summers was again asked to adjust quickly when he arrived on the Hilltop.

Hoya Years

Summers first saw the court exactly six minutes and 38 seconds into his Hoyas career. He came off the bench and played 10 minutes during Georgetown’s opening day win against Hartford. Three games later, Summers made his first career start, leading the team with 17 points in a victory over Fairfield. He’s started ever since.

Summers tallied some impressive numbers during his freshman year, averaging 9.2 points and 3.7 rebounds per game. Though his statistics improved during his sophomore season (11.1 ppg, 5.4 rpg), many Hoya fans were expecting more. Summers took more shots than anyone except Roy Hibbert, yet he had the lowest field goal percentage (.429) and the lowest three-point percentage (.342) of the team’s starters. He also had fewer assists than all the other starters, averaging only 1.5 assists per game.

Summers admits that he may have been too focused on scoring during his first two seasons at Georgetown.

“In previous years, my approach to the game was always trying to score. I felt like I was a scorer,” Summers says. “I still am a scorer, but I felt like that was the only way I could affect the game.”

acMullen says Summers’ scorer’s mentality makes sense considering the role he played in high school.

“He was scoring 25 points and getting 15 rebounds per game, and people were getting the ball to him,” MacMullen says. “Georgetown’s offense requires a very unselfish style of play – you’ve got to be able to pass and do other things he wasn’t always asked to do for us.”

Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III says that he was not disappointed with Summers’ sophomore performance. He attributes criticism of Summers’ season to people’s desire to compare him to former Georgetown standout Jeff Green.

“I think that people expected or wanted DaJuan to do the things that Jeff did,” Thompson says. “I think a lot of people may have judged his year based on that comparison.”

Thompson says that Summers worked hard this past offseason in terms of strength and conditioning and is poised to have a good year. However, Thompson cautions that Summers will not be a reincarnation of Green.

“If people are looking for DaJuan to be Jeff Green, that’s not going to happen,” Thompson says. “That’s not to say he’s not going to be more effective in other ways than Jeff was, but he’s a different person, he’s a different player.”

New Responsibilities

Since Jeremiah Rivers and Vernon Macklin transferred during the offseason, Summers finds himself as the lone junior on this year’s squad. He now has more experience than anyone else on the roster with the exception of senior Jessie Sapp.

He says he’s ready for his new role as a team leader.

“From being in the program so long, I know how Coach expects things to be done,” Summers says. “Knowing those types of things will help me be a leader. I can show the freshmen how things are done here so they don’t feel as much pressure on them.”

Indeed, Summers seems to have genuinely bought into Thompson’s philosophy about only focusing on the next game on the schedule. When asked what he thought the most important game of the season would be, he responded by saying that the first game is the most crucial.

“Then after that and after that is the biggest game of the season,” Summers says. “That’s how we always approach it, and that’s the best way to approach it. If you get your mind set on too many different things then you can’t focus as well on the next thing, the task at hand.”

He stresses that he is not concerned with personal accolades, saying he does not care who scores the points as long as the Hoyas win. Right now, Summers feels like he can best contribute by continuing to improve the mental side of his game.

“After having a lot of intimate conversations with Coach and him showing me different ways to affect the game, I feel like that mental part of my game has just skyrocketed,” Summers says. “Just knowing when to get the rebound, consistently going after rebounds harder, consistently making good passes, consistently playing your guy and stopping him from scoring.”

He says that his overall understanding of the game is what sets him apart now from where he was freshman year.

“Coach told me when he recruited me that I was an all-around player, I just didn’t know it yet,” he says. “Now I have a better understanding about what being a well-rounded player really means.”

In fact, Summers’ game might be so polished that it could be his last year wearing a Hoyas uniform. He is considered to be a possible first-round draft pick as early as the 2009 draft. Last summer, Summers got a chance to showcase his talent to NBA scouts at the Lebron James Skills Academy in Akron, Ohio, and the Vince Carter Skills Academy in Orlando, Fla. Yet Summers dismisses questions about the NBA, saying he is entirely focused on winning games for Georgetown right now.

acMullen agrees with the scouts who think Summers has a future in the NBA, stating that Summers’ work ethic will be the key to his success at the next level.

“He obviously has an NBA body, but the reason I think he’s going to not only be an NBA player but a really good one is that he’ll do whatever it takes to be a good NBA player,” MacMullen says. “There are a heck of a lot of players out there with a good body, but there aren’t many with his drive and toughness and determination.”

Though Summers can do remarkable things on the basketball court, his former coaches agree that his character is his most impressive attribute.

“He’s genuine and he works hard,” Lewis says. “He’s just an outstanding young man.”

“He’s a great teammate and a great human being,” MacMullen adds.

Summers says he has always believed that he could be where he is today.

“Even when I was pudgy and fat, I always felt like I’d be able to be good at basketball and affect the game,” he says. “I could always shoot, and I always loved it. I think if you really love something it works out for you.”

Donate to The Hoya

Your donation will support the student journalists of Georgetown University. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

More to Discover
Donate to The Hoya