David Tairu drops to the floor and pumps five push-ups with the precise rhythm of a metronome, even though only the 15,000 empty seatbacks surrounding the United Spirit Arena court saw him miss a free throw. Integrity intact, he pops up and continues shooting.

Texas Tech's David Tairu dunks the ball against Lamar on Saturday. The solo jam represented Tairu's only points of the night at United Spirit Arena. (John A. Bowersmith)

It’s Thanksgiving break and the building is empty except for women’s basketball players lifting in the weight room and a few arena staff working in offices upstairs. Tairu practices driving to the basket, each sound hanging in the empty air: the squeak of his sole as he plants and takes off, the grunt as he releases each shot, the soft thud as his feet return to the hardwood and the gentle swoosh as the ball slides through the net.

Tairu won’t be the only Texas Tech basketball player to get in a few extra shots today. Little more than a dozen hours have passed since the team landed back in Lubbock after defeating Stephen F. Austin on Tuesday night, and already several members have come through the gym.

Tairu’s reason for being here, though, is so simple his coaches struggle to describe it. It’s why he is always at the arena on days Tech doesn’t practice, why he patiently added an extra four years to his journey from high school to Division I basketball.

He uses a Bible verse to sum it up, quoting Psalms, 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.”

“Things will happen when they happen,” he says. “All we have to do is be patient and when they come, be willing to receive it. That’s what I’ve learned.”

Coach Pat Knight surprised no one on the team when he added Tairu to this season’s starting lineup. When he plays, the 6-foot-3 guard owns the court as if every college coach vied for his attention throughout his high school career; he is shooting a whopping 53.5 percent on the season, best of any backcourt player.

In truth, his path to Lubbock wandered across the east coast before getting a westward shove from former Nebraska Cornhusker Steve Harley. Through two years of prep school and two more at South Plains College before joining the Tech team this season, Tairu developed an “If A, then B” approach to life and basketball. It ties back into that line in Psalms; he simply believes if he is willing to work, life will reward him with positive results.

So as a second ball bounces off the rim, he hits the ground for five more push-ups. It’s not that the push-ups will give him more arm strength and in turn make him a better basketball player, rather an understanding that certain levels of hard work correlate with certain levels of success.

“I think he believes that because he’s doing the right things, success is just around the corner for him,” South Plains coach Steve Green said. “And more times than not, it has been.”

As a high school student in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., Tairu had both the brains and the brawn to move on to Division I, but his team didn’t do well enough to catch college coaches’ eyes. He briefly considered applying to schools the old fashioned way, but knew the cost would be a tremendous drain for his mom, a single parent to four sons. If he was talented enough to play Division I basketball, Tairu reasoned, there had to be a way to get a scholarship.

He enrolled at Lutheran Christian Academy, a prep school in Philadelphia. Several years ago similar schools began sprouting up around the country, signing up athletes who had completed their four years of high school but lacked either the academic scores or athletic ability to transition directly to college sports.

The NCAA quickly realized many of these schools spent little time on coursework and lots on basketball, and began investigating what it termed “diploma mills.” In July 2006 it released the first list of schools from which it would no longer accept transcripts; within the year Lutheran Christian Academy was on the list.

The New York Times reported that four different students at Lutheran Christian told its reporters they never attended class and their only teacher was the basketball coach. Tairu said he’d been so desperate to make it to college however possible he lied to his mother about what was happening at the school; she only learned the truth after reading the newspaper.

“During that whole time I was lying to my mother, like yeah, the school is good, I’m doing my work, when really I was not,” he said. “I was heartbroken that she found out through the newspaper and not through me. I had to carry the burden of that for a while.”

Lutheran Christian Academy was shut down, and two years after leaving high school Tairu returned home, his mom angry with him, his future plans tattered. Desperate for some new idea, he contacted everyone he knew in the game but received few suggestions on what to do next. Then he called Harley, a former teammate in Temple Hills, Md., who had just signed with Nebraska. Harley suggested Tairu talk to the coaches at South Plains, where he went to junior college, saying they’d be able to prepare him for the Division I game.

Tech coach Pat Knight said Harley was right.

“He came from a great program at South Plains,” Knight said. “Steve Green coaches a lot like we do, he gets after kids, so it wasn’t a real culture shock when he came here.”

Green said Tairu didn’t understand the maturity he brought even as a freshman at South Plains. He came off the bench as the Texans won the 2008 NJCAA national championship, but Green calls him “the glue that held it all together.” Tairu remembers a three-game losing streak that year during which he almost became depressed with the team’s troubles before realizing it was more important to lift his teammates than wallow in his own emotions.

He calls that a turning point in how he views everything that happened after he left Maryland.

“I wanted to go to college right after high school, but instead I went to prep schools, wasted two years of my life,” he said. “But now I’m here. Obviously this is what (God) wanted for me.”

Tairu’s faith kept him in West Texas after his two years at South Plains. Texas Tech began recruiting him hard, and while his friendship with Nick Okorie, another South Plains grad, made him comfortable with the team, he says he found a good spiritual plane here.

“The first time I met him I thought it was a joke how nice he was, but it hasn’t changed yet,” Okorie said. “You know, when you first meet somebody they’re kind of nice, trying to portray a role, but he’s always been like that. He’s never been a mean guy, doesn’t cuss, doesn’t do any of that.”

Green remembers warning the Tech staff they’d be worn out coaching Tairu. Some players need 24-hour attention to keep them out of trouble; Tairu, on the other hand, constantly seeks advice on ways to continue progressing. He takes each off-handed comment to heart, Green said, thriving on the structure of his “If A, then B” philosophy.

“If (Bob) Knight happens to be walking around and says, ‘David, you need to hop on one foot,’ I can see David working on hopping on one foot,” Green said.

It’s paid off; Tairu’s 10.3 points per game ties for third-best on the team. He had a remarkable Division I debut, scoring 17 points in Tech’s 88-49 win against South Dakota, and reached double digits again last week against Northwestern State.

His best performance at Tech happened Nov. 15, as the Red Raiders played Oregon State in the Duel in the Desert tournament. Tairu struggled in the first half and had just 2 points after 20 minutes, driving coach Pat Knight to bench him as the second half began.

When Tairu returned to the game, he scored 17 more points, leading Tech to a 64-60 win against the Pac-10 team.

Afterward, he passed off the credit to John Roberson, who he said did an exceptional job of finding him open shots. When Green sent Tairu a text message congratulating him on the win, he responded with more self-deprecation.

“He turned around and thanked me for it, for making him better,” Green said. “It’s things like that all the time. It’s like, what did I do to get to coach a kid like that?”

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