[h1]Hoyas may have fooled selection committee -- or made me the fool[/h1]
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By Gregg Doyel
CBSSports.com National Columnist
March 17, 2011
Tell Gregg your opinion!
CHICAGO -- If this is a hoax, it's pretty darned elaborate. A couple more layers to this Chris Wright ruse, and it'll fool even me. Which was probably Georgetown's goal all along.
First the
Hoyas announced on Saturday, the day before the selection committee finalized the 2011 bracket, that their injured point guard would play in the NCAA tournament. It was an empty promise, considering Wright had undergone surgery on a broken hand on Feb. 24, but it's what the Hoyas felt they had to do. They had lost their last four games before the tournament, all without Wright -- so they pulled a Syracuse, circa 2010, and announced that their injured starter would play.
The selection committee bought it -- just like the committee bought Syracuse's story on center Arinze Onuaku last year -- but not me. Nope, I was onto the Hoyas even before their announcement Saturday. It was me, on Thursday, who wondered aloud if
Georgetown was unworthy of an NCAA bid without Wright, considering its 0-4 record in games since his injury. Not sure what the RPI would be for a Big East team with an 0-4 record, but it wouldn't be good. Seth Greenberg would whine about that team's NCAA tournament credentials. OK, faulty logic there. Seth Greenberg whines about everything.
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| Georgetown's Chris Wright had surgery on his broken hand on Feb. 24.(US Presswire) | |
Anyway, the selection committee bought it, but then the hoax kicked into high gear. Which makes no sense. Georgetown got its bid, even got a respectable No. 6 seed for a team that was obviously overmatched against NCAA tournament competition -- those four losses were by an average margin of 14.5 points -- without its point guard. No need to continue the ruse. Syracuse didn't last year, getting its No. 1 seed and then announcing that Onuaku wouldn't, as it turns out, be able to play on the tournament's first weekend.
Oops. Honest mistake!
No such announcement this week from Georgetown. Just the opposite, in fact.
Dispatches from campus on Monday indicated that Wright was back on the court, was playing well, even took a hit and landed on his surgically repaired hand and kept practicing. I didn't buy any of it. Skeptical? That's me. Smart, too. Way too smart to be fooled again. Syracuse burned all of us a year ago, but Georgetown won't get me this year. If Georgetown gets
you, so be it. I can't go holding your hand.
So here we are on Thursday in Chicago, at the United Center, where Georgetown will play Virginia Commonwealth. The game is Friday, barely three weeks since Wright had surgery on his hand. Play? Impossible. Which is a shame, because Wright is the key to Georgetown's success. The Hoyas have an All-Big East player in sturdy scoring leader Austin Freeman (17.9 ppg), they shoot well (47.8 percent from the floor overall, 36 percent on 3-pointers) and outrebound opponents (plus-2.4 per game) and have a three-guard lineup that scores in bunches from behind the arc and on the foul line. It's a good recipe, but it falls flat without Wright. Does that make him the flour? Not sure. I'm not a chef.
Nor am I a doctor, but three weeks seems like an awfully quick recovery for a point guard with a hand so broken that it required surgery. So I wrote that skeptical item on Friday of last week, and then
on Sunday I kind of wrote it again, after the Hoyas got their at-large bid.
No question, Wright is good enough to lie about. He's second on the Hoyas in scoring (13.1 ppg), tied for first in steals (1.5) and first by a large margin in assists (5.4). On the season, Wright has 70 more assists than turnovers. The rest of the team, combined, has 17 more turnovers than assists. That's losing basketball right there, which is why Chris Wright has been the difference between winning and losing for the Hoyas this season.
But the ruse continues. One of the most prominent sections of the Georgetown NCAA tournament game notes is devoted to Wright, and to his alleged return. "Wright cleared to play for NCAA Tournament," says the headline, and as far as corporate double-talk goes, that's good. That's very good. It's so good that I don't see whatever wiggle room the school's publicists and lawyers built into that headline. I guess we'll find out after the game, after we find out that Wright really wasn't cleared to play.
A lesser man, a weaker writer, would be shaken by all of this. But not me. Not even after the United Center press conferences on Thursday evening, when Georgetown coach John Thompson III said Wright would play. And when Georgetown teammate Austin Freeman said Wright would play. And when Wright himself said Wright would play. He said, "Two good days of practice here. Back home, two good days [there]. I'm going out there, playing my normal game. Nothing is restricted."
Scared? Not me. Because I knew the open practice was coming next, and when the Hoyas took the floor and Wright sat it out, vindication would be mine.
But then came the open practice. And there was Wright. On the court. Dribbling, shooting. Even making shots.
"He's healthy," Thompson said. "He's fine."
As far as ruses go, let me tell you, this is a good one. This is a complex piece of modern art compared to the paint-by-numbers kindergarten fraud perpetuated last season by Syracuse.
But the gig's up, Georgetown. Chris Wright isn't playing on Friday.
Unless he is. To which I say, in all sincerity: good. Apparently I was wrong when I speculated that he wouldn't play --
some have said I was wrong even to bring it up -- but I'm happy to be wrong. It would be a shame for Wright's teammates, his coach, his school if he couldn't play. Most of all it would be a shame for Wright to miss out on this moment.
Happy for you, Chris Wright. And for you, Hoyas.
What say you, Georgetown fans? Friends?
