Joey Calcaterra becomes leader for Toreros.
Junior’s career has taken steady climb since redshirt year
USD botched an offensive possession right before halftime against Nevada earlier this month and there was some bickering among two teammates on the trip back to the defensive end.
Redshirt junior guard Joey Calcaterra quickly set his teammates straight.
According to head coach Sam Scholl, Calcaterra bluntly yelled, “Stop worrying about that! We’ve got to get a stop right now!”
At halftime, Calcaterra reiterated the message to the teammates, making sure it sank in.
A starter for the second straight season, the team’s leading scorer at 15.5 points and the longest tenured player in the program along with forward Yauhen Massalski, Calcaterra has matured into a leader.
“Every day his enthusiasm and energy and talk is outstanding,” said Scholl. “It’s genuine because it’s consistent. Guys recognize that. He wants to win.”
The Toreros open West Coast Conference play this afternoon at USF, and Calcaterra’s leadership will be needed during the next two months when many are predicting USD will be humbled. WCC coaches picked the Toreros to finish ninth in the 10-team conference.
The KenPom metric predicts the score of every Division I game and forecasts USD winning just twice in 16 WCC games.
“Predictions and numbers,” Scholl said of the KenPom prognostication. “We’re just going to focus on being better every day, taking steps in improvement, growing together, being who we are, competing to get wins
and experiencing the joy in games that comes from winning.”
Calcaterra, too, stiffarms the outside chatter.
“We try not to listen to that,” he said. “That probably has something to do with our performance last year (9-23, 2-14 in the WCC). ... We went into the offseason in March with a chip on our shoulders, knowing we had to improve in a lot of areas.”
All teams have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic but with nine new players, including five Division I transfers, USD has been particularly challenged. The new players normally would have arrived on campus last June and had eight weeks of organized practice, plus hundreds of hours shooting, drilling and playing pickup games inside Jenny Craig Pavilion with no coaches on the floor.
All that was erased by COVID protocol with the new players not arriving until late August.
A positive COVID test by an unidentified player six days before the scheduled season opener forced the team to go into quarantine for 14 days.
COVID concerns erased three nonconference games and now, ready or not, having
played only four games, WCC play has arrived. While not to be confused with the ACC or Big Ten, the WCC has earned national respect.
Gonzaga is Gonzaga, ranked No. 1 in the nation. Out of 357 Division I teams, KenPom ranks BYU 66th, Saint Mary’s 67th and USF 74th. USD is ranked 190th. Only Portland is ranked lower in the WCC. One metric rates the WCC as the nation’s seventh-best conference.
As for Calcaterra, he has supplied leadership off and on the f loor. Wanting to stay healthy during the pandemic, he said he has socialized only with his teammates and family since March. He gets groceries delivered to his apartment and hasn’t eaten at a restaurant “for a couple of months.”
Scholl said that teammates typically fall under two categories: nice or kind. A nice teammate keeps things on the surface.
“Kind teammates,” said Scholl, “go deeper. They challenge teammates to be the best version of themselves. They’re not afraid to step over the line and express some uncomfortable truths.”
The sinewy, 6-feet-3, 165pound Calcaterra falls under the kind category.
Said Scholl, “He’s not afraid to hold guys accountable.”
Calcaterra’s career has taken a steady vertical ascent. Redshirt as a freshman. Play in 32 games, average 12½ minutes and 2.3 points as a redshirt freshman. Start all 32 games last season, average 11.3 points and nearly three rebounds and two assists.
Being vocal comes natural to him. Even when he was redshirting in 2017-18, he wouldn’t back down from veteran players. He talked a cocky game.
“I think that comes from being the youngest of three boys (who all played college basketball),” said Scholl. “He’s never one to back down.”
“Anybody with older brothers will tell you, you grow up fighting,” said Calcaterra, who battled his older brothers in knock-down games on the family’s Marin County driveway. “You had to fight to win. You had to fight to get a bucket. You had to fight to get a stop.”
Said Scholl, “If Joey didn’t have the confidence he has, he’s probably not a player at our level.”
Being 22 years old with three-plus years of college basketball experience also brings perspective. Calcaterra knows some are predicting doom for the Toreros. But amidst a pandemic, he sees the big picture.
“A lot of people have lost their jobs,” he said. “A lot of people have been sitting home the last couple of months. In the end, we have to realize how blessed we are to play college basketball.”