NEW YORK -- Duke forward Lance Thomas planned to bring both his sketchpad and photo-shop program to Manhattan for the final two rounds of the NIT Season Tip-Off at Madison Square Garden.
With all of the historic architecture, bustling people and time before today's 5 p.m. championship game against No. 13 Connecticut, he figured there would be plenty of inspiration.
When the 6-foot-8 senior isn't guarding opposing point guards or serving as his seventh-ranked team's co-captain, he can often be found drawing - on paper or his computer.
The childhood hobby has always helped him relax when he's not on the court, Thomas said. And this semester, he has blended his athletic and artistic sides by designing advertisements for the Goduke.com e-newsletter as part of an independent study.
"It's fun," said Thomas, a visual arts major from Scotch Plains, N.J., who is averaging 6.0 points and 3.4 rebounds for the 5-0 Blue Devils. "And it's funny to think that I went from drawing little things as a kid to just building on it - trying to do things with the computer now, and drawing something and importing it and making it look totally different.
"It's a challenge - and I like that."
Indeed, the challenge of drawing is what got him into art in the first place.
His mom, Lily Irvin, remembers that even as a first- and second-grader, Thomas' teachers noticed that his drawings of trees and athletes and animals featured more details than the average attempts of most 6- and 7-year olds.
"He was really self-taught," Irvin said. "It was just always something he was able to do. ... And I always thought it was one of those therapeutic things for him - whenever he wanted to be settled, he would draw."
Then around the fourth grade, Thomas and some of his elementary school friends took to sketching the animated characters from the Playstation game Final Fantasy VII. They would compare and compete, Thomas said, as to who drew which characters the best. Some of his fellow budding artists were great at facial features, some at proportions. He had a knack for shading and detail, and was often considered one of the best in the group.
"I always just liked to draw, whether it was looking at something randomly in the house and drawing it, or looking at something in a book and drawing it," he said. "And I realized it was something I was good at, and some other people in my school were good at it - so I wanted to be the best at it.
"I think my inspiration was just wanting to be better than the other artists in my class. That helped me out, because I would go home to practice."
When Thomas started playing basketball a couple of years later, he wanted to be the best at that, too - which is why hoops practice became his first passion, his sketch pad became a secondary hobby. Every once in a while, he would take it on AAU trips and doodle when he had some free time, and he knew he wanted to have some sort of artistic major in college, because "I'd be sitting around, I'd just start drawing, and think 'I've still got it,' " he said.
"I knew I wanted to take something I was really good at, and something I could build upon and learn something more."
What he's been learning through his independent study, he said, is how to take his art to the "next level," via computer.
So far, his designs have included ads for the volleyball team's Duke Invitational, the basketball team's Countdown to Craziness and the football team's home game against Virginia Tech. He's also been tinkering with some scoreboard graphics, and although he wants to play basketball professionally, he could also see working in visual arts in some capacity as a second career down the road.
His next project for now, he said, "could have something to do with the team." He didn't have a direct aim on what it would be before he left for New York but figured he would get plenty of ideas on the trip.
Perhaps even in the hours leading up to today's showdown with the Huskies - the best team the Blue Devils have faced this season, and the program that knocked Duke out of the 2004 NCAA Tournament semifinals.
"Drawing is something that relaxes me," Thomas said. "If I'm drawing, there's really nothing else on my mind."
