GAELS’ TIMBERTOP MAN
Center Landale, among 20 finalists for Wooden Award, had his life shaped in Australian bush
MORAGA >> The star center for the No. 11 Saint Mary’s basketball team spent the ninth grade living with classmates in rustic cabins in the Victoria highlands of southern Australia. This is where the direction of Jock Landale’s young life was defined.
In the shadow of Mount Timbertop, Landale, then 15, chopped wood, hiked and camped outdoors, took long runs through the Australian bush and survived the freezing Down Under temperatures of July and the hot conditions of February.
The rugged terrain was home to wild dogs, kangaroos, snakes and the occasional resident hermit.
“Honestly, it was probably one of the better years of my life,” said Landale, 22.
Prince Charles, who attended Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop camp in 1966, had virtually the same reaction. “I loved it all,” he was quoted as saying by the Telegraph of London after a 2005 visit to help celebrate the school’s 150th anniversary.
Now, seven years after his outdoor adventure, Landale is among 20 finalists for the Wooden
Award, given to the nation’s best player. His candidacy could get a big boost Saturday night when the 6-11 senior center leads the Gaels (24-2, 13-0) against No. 12 Gonzaga (22-4, 12-1) in the first West Coast Conference game ever matching top-15 opponents. The game will be on ESPN2 at 7 p.m.
Landale didn’t arrive in college with the ready-made credentials of freshmen Deandre Ayton and Marvin Bagley III, regarded as the likely top two picks in this year’s NBA draft. But he is the only player ranked among the nation’s top-10 in scoring (22.7), rebounds (10.7) and field-goal percentage (66.0).
Perhaps neither Ayton nor Bagley needed the boost that Timbertop provided Landale.
“It’s about resilience and how far you can physically push yourself beyond your mental limits,” said Jock’s father, Clive Landale, who also attended Geelong Grammar, a co-ed boarding school for seventh-through-12th graders, 140 miles northeast of Melbourne.
Boys and girls in the ninth grade leave the traditional campus for a year at Timbertop. Students are housed 14 to a cabin (boys and girls separately), and cabin mates take turns handling chores that include waking at 4 a.m. to light the fire in the boiler that heats water for showers.
Students complete normal ninthgrade curriculum during the week, but on weekends venture out for extended hikes, orienteering and runs, eventually trekking to the 4,100-foot peak of Mount Timbertop and back. Fifty nights a year are spent camping, including an overnight solo experience.
“It’s not dangerous,” Landale said, “but there are times you’re climbing rock faces and you’re thinking, ‘This could go bad real quick.’”
Landale embraced Timbertop, both the work and the play. “You kind of make your own fun,” he said, describing midnight raids on other cabins to steal firewood. “We have to cut our own wood to heat our units. This wood is like gold.”
When Landale returned home, everyone saw a change.
“My parents tell me as soon as I came back there wasn’t as much complaining,” Landale said. “It grew me up quite a bit.”
And it changed his outlook toward basketball. Landale had quit playing for two years when he arrived at boarding school, but when he got home from Timbertop he did a workout for his long-time coach, Simon Giovannoni.
Clive Landale said Giovannoni told him he had never seen a player change so dramatically.
“He was more mature and definitely had his mind more directed to becoming great at basketball,” Giovannoni said this week. “The difference was he started asking me if we could work out. The previous years, it was always me bugging him. I felt like it was a bit of a waste of time.”
By 2013, Landale earned a spot on the under-19 national team. A year later, after being largely ignored by other U.S. colleges during recruiting, he joined the Australian pipeline to Moraga.
Omar Samhan, the star center on the Gaels’ 2010 Sweet 16 team, has served as mentor to Landale, exchanging text messages and working out with him during the summer. Samhan has played professionally in 10 countries, but while in Australia, beginning in late 2015, he sensed Landale was barely on the radar among the locals.
“I’d tell people, ‘The kid’s got a chance to be a really good pro,’ and they would laugh,” Samhan said.
No one’s laughing anymore. Gaels coach Randy Bennett says Landale has improved since the start of this season and is now a better college player than Samhan.
“He’s more refined than I was for sure,” Samhan said.
Landale leads NCAA Division I in player efficiency rating, according to basketballreference.com, but is nowhere on mock draft lists. In the eyes of NBA scouts, however, he does not stack up with Arizona’s Ayton or Duke’s Bagley.
“I’ve seen them play and they’re really good. I’d love to get the opportunity to go up against them,” Landale said, pointing to a possible NCAA tournament matchup. “Can I beat them? For me, it puts a chip on my shoulder because these guys get all the attention and I’m at little Saint Mary’s.”
An NBA scout, speaking anonymously, said it’s possible a team could take Landale late in the second round, but more likely that he’ll sign as a free agent. The NBA’s concerns: Not athletic enough and a lowpost center in an era when big men are expected to be more versatile.
Giovannoni said everything about Landale’s game and his nature suggests he can help a team.
“His touch around the rim is second to none and he is an exceptional passer out of the post,” Giovannoni said. “Surround him with good shooters and he could be devastating.”
That’s exactly what Saint Mary’s has done, and the formula works on this level.
Bennett said Landale merely needs a team to believe in him, citing exGaels guard Matthew Dellavedova, who signed as a free agent with the Cleveland Cavaliers and won an NBA title in his third season.
“I’ve played against enough NBA guys that I know the size and skill you need, and he’s got it,” Samhan said.