UW Men's Basketball | Powered by Pistol Pete

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Although Ryan Appleby has never been to Louisiana State University -- he'll make his first visit today when the Washington Huskies play the Tigers at noon -- in a way, this is where it all began.

Appleby was in sixth grade, when his father, Mike, handed him a video about Pete Maravich called "The Pistol: The Birth of a Legend," the tale of the legendary player's first year of high-school varsity basketball.

Appleby was already a budding basketball player who would often follow his dad to his games with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes -- a couple of times, he sat on the bench during exhibition games against the Huskies during the Andy Russo era. But the Maravich video put basketball in a completely different light.

"He must have watched that thing every day for six months," said Mike Appleby, who played at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore. "He probably still remembers every word of it."

And in the process, the video also helped spawn a passion in the younger Appleby as he became enthralled by all things Maravich. Pistol Pete's greatest moments were here at LSU, where he averaged 44.2 points in three years, still an NCAA record.

Appleby has been nursing painful back spasms since a game last Saturday against Cal State Northridge, but he says there is little that could keep him from playing in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, the 13,472-seat arena that opened in 1972.

"The devotion he had just inspired me," Appleby said of the Maravich video. "I started looking at more and more of his stuff. I saw some of his workout videos, shooting drills and passing drills and all those types of things, and I just tried to master them. And then I started reading and looking at more stuff about him, newspaper clippings and books and things like that, and I just saw the type of person he was and it really inspired me to want to play basketball.

"It was like, 'Man, if I could have that much passion for the game, I might have a chance to be a tenth of the player he was.' "

So Appleby decided he wanted to try to work as hard as Maravich did.

"He came to me one day and said, 'I want to play basketball,' " Mike Appleby said. "He just got the itch."

Ryan's mother, Debbie, would wake Ryan and Mike at 5:30 a.m., pack some food, and away father and son would go to Stanwood High School.

"There was a janitor that would open the gym and turn on the lights for us," Mike Appleby said.

Soon, Ryan created his own rule -- he couldn't leave the gym until he had made 200 three-pointers.

And that's where he formed the quick release and dead-eye aim that has made him one of the most feared shooters in the country. Appleby has made 17 of 32 three-pointers in four games this season, tying a UW record with seven against Portland State. He needs 42 more three-pointers to pass Deon Luton as the school's career leader.

"You rarely see him shoot the ball differently," said UW coach Lorenzo Romar. "It looks the same every shot."

Appleby, whose personal Maravich collection includes every book written about him, a rookie card, and a couple of throwback jerseys, credits some of the drills he saw Maravich do with making him the player he is today.

Appleby became a standout at Stanwood, attracting the attention of recruiters throughout the country. But none pursued him more intently than Billy Donovan at Florida.

"He went there because they went up and down the floor and tried to score 100 points every time," Mike Appleby said.

But after he arrived, Florida's style changed, as did its plans for Appleby. He was thrust primarily into a role of point guard. Feeling the style wasn't the best match for his abilities -- he scored 23 points in 23 games -- Appleby decided to transfer. With UW's program revived by then -- the Huskies made the NCAA tournament for the first time under Romar in 2004 -- Appleby decided to come home.

"This was really the only school I contacted," said Appleby, a valued reserve on the 2005-06 team that qualified for the Sweet 16, winning Pac-10 Newcomer of the Year honors. He became a starter last season.

Appleby learned he might have had a chance to play in the house Maravich built when LSU came to town for a game last December.

The day before the game, LSU coach John Brady told Appleby he planned to recruit him after he left Florida, and the Maravich mystique would have led the pitch.

"We would have loved to have had him, but we didn't work quick enough," Brady said this week.

Ryan Appleby says it would have been tempting to consider playing where Maravich did, but he says he has no regrets coming to UW, nor leaving Florida, even though the Gators have won the past two national titles.

"I never really looked back on that," Appleby said.

He missed the first five weeks of this season with a broken thumb suffered in practice, an absence that underlined his value to the team. In just four games, he has made three more three-pointers than anyone else on the team in 11 games.

"He's been shooting it better than he ever has since he's been here," Romar said. "And, consequently, we have no problems getting him shots."

One sign of respect came last week when Cal State Northridge opened in a box-and-one defense, shadowing Appleby with a defender everywhere he went.

An even greater recognition might have come a few years ago when Appleby was finishing one of the latest books written about his idol, simply called "Maravich." On page 375, Appleby found his name listed as one of the players who patterned his game after Pistol Pete.

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