Published: 09:59 AM, Fri Jun 25, 2010
Shugar: Remembering John Wall in Fayetteville
Most high school boys' basketball coaches would feel good about being on the free-throw line up by two with 4.6 seconds remaining - but not with John Wall on the floor.
Because when the Trinity Christian player missed his shot and Wall got the ball, you could almost hear the starter's pistol sound. The Word of God point guard showed why he was considered the top recruit in the 2009 class, zooming up the floor to get a good look in the paint before the buzzer sounded.
The potential game-tying bucket rimmed out, leaving Wall spread out over the hardwood looking at the referee in disbelief. As he walked to the locker room that February evening with a 68-66 loss to the Crusaders, the senior could be heard muttering, "That was a foul."
He might have been right, but Trinity Christian boys' basketball coach Heath Vandevender was glad to accept the home-court call and escape with one of the four wins his program posted during Wall's three-year tenure at Word of God.
"He was 5 feet from the rim when the clock expired," said Vandevender, whose squad went 4-8 overall against Wall. "That's how fast he is. He got down the floor in under 5 seconds and got a shot off inside the paint. It's amazing how fast that kid is."
It's no surprise to people associated with the Crusaders basketball program that Wall went No. 1 overall to the Washington Wizards in Thursday's NBA draft. They knew about the 6-foot-4, 195-pound player's ability long before he was getting national TV coverage at Kentucky and dancing his way into living rooms during the NCAA basketball tourney.
I got my first look at him that night against Trinity Christian, and the senior controlled a court stocked with some of the best high school players in the country with minimal effort. Early on, he appeared disinterested in attacking the Crusaders' 3-2 zone, settling for 3-pointers that didn't fall with enough regularity to force a defensive change.
The Rams trailed 35-22 at halftime before Wall woke up, recording 20 of his game-high 29 points after the break. Eleven of those came in the fourth quarter, but the Trinity Christian defense did its job. Twenty-one of his points came from either the foul line or 3-point range, which is exactly how Vandevender drew it up pregame.
I left thinking I hadn't seen a particularly good game from the best recruit in the nation. Sure, he had the numbers, but his effort was unimpressive. After watching a young man named LeBron James play in high school back in my native Ohio, the bar is set pretty high.
Yet he was still the best player on a court that had some names most college basketball fans will soon recognize, if they don't already. C.J. Leslie, his Word of God teammate and the preordained savior of the N.C. State men's basketball program, was an afterthought, at best. Trinity Christian's Damontre Harris - a 6-9 top 100 recruit himself who is on his way to South Carolina next year - was only beginning his meteoric rise on college coaches' radars.
"We had different rules just for John because we could not play him one-on-one," Vandevender said. "Eight feet from the rim, nobody could guard him. I don't think anybody in college could guard him one on one either."
In a league like the NBA where the stars are born in the final ticks of the clock, Wall's special talents will be on display 82 times a year. NBA pundits compare him to Chicago's Derrick Rose or Boston's Rajon Rondo, but I wouldn't be surprised if he develops a name of his own after a few seasons.
And when he stuns some team at the buzzer, members of the Trinity Christian boys' basketball program can smile and remember the time he didn't beat them.
Staff writer Paul Shugar can be reached at shugarp@fayobserver.com or 486-3513.