Anybody who has followed college basketball this year has noticed John Wall by now. Perhaps the best college player in the county, Wall is the current object of lust for several prominent basketball broadcasters, the most notable being that famous bald guy, Dick Vitale. And he’s shown the hype surrounding him is justified.
Much to Dickie V’s fawning admiration, the Raleigh, NC native has averaged 19 points, 7 assists and 3 steals per game in his young college career. His 25 against UConn included 12 of UK’s last 15 points. He also made a couple of clutch free throws late in the North Carolina game to polish them off.
He hit a jumper at the buzzer to beat Miami of Ohio, and played a major role in holding off a scrappy Stanford team. Every time this kid gets on the court, he’s making big plays. Despite being surrounded by an extremely talented cast, Wall is the star of the show. In all possibility, #4 Kentucky might be looking at a 4-4 record without the star frosh. Instead they look like legitimate national championship contenders.
In fact, watching Wall, you just might consider him the only freshman that matters in the country. But before you do this, know this isn’t another fan piece on Wall. There are enough of those on ESPN, Kentucky Sports Radio, and of course, Kentucky Ink. No, this is a piece on a subject nearer and dearer to the hearts of Kansas fans, Xavier Henry.
A standout freshman for the Jayhawks, Henry has also lived up to his pre-college hype. Point blank (point plankn?), the kid is a gamer. Quick and agile, with a high basketball IQ, he’s put on a free clinic for fans and opposing players alike. For this reason, I am officially starting the movement referring to him as The Professor. (Get it? Professor Xavier? From the X-Men? Don’t kid yourself; you’re just as big of a nerd as I am.)
Averaging a team-high 16.4 points per game, Professor X is scoring at a clip Kansas fans are not used to from freshmen. This is no slight to any other players, just a testament to the on-court maturity the X-man has demonstrated. Even in Bill Self’s system which emphasizes team play and finding the open man, Henry has emerged as a go-to guy, a player capable of going off for 30 on any given night. This is high praise on a team featuring two All-American candidates in Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich.
With a quick release and a confident stroke, X has shown the ability to knock down shots given just a glimmer of daylight between him and his defender. Thanks to the double teams Cole commands in the post, Collins’s ability to penetrate and the Jayhawks’ willingness to work the ball around to an open man, X has found himself with a lot more than an inch of room lots of times. And more often than not, he’s made the defense pay. Shooting .536 from the field, he’s hitting 50% of his shots from long-range. Having already hit 20 three-pointers this year, Professor X gives Kansas the third scoring option which at times seemed lacking last year.
While the Jayhawks have a trio of talented freshmen this year (four if you count Xavier’s 23 year old brother CJ, a medical redshirt last year at Memphis), Xavier has consistently shown the poise and instincts of an upperclassman. Whether it’s being in the right position defensively or hustling down the court, this kid rarely looks like a freshman. He’s even got an upperclassman’s body, or in reality, a body built for the league. Whereas most freshmen come in scrawny and weak (remember Omar Wilkes? He looked like he had just won a difficult battle with some sort of sickness), Henry is a beast; a 19 year old kid in the body of a 28 year old man.
The only knock I’ll offer against Henry (other than his mediocre performance against Memphis) is his driving. While he has good handles and isn’t afraid to drive the lane, he seems to prefer a finesse shot, a la last year’s Morris twins. He needs to learn, like they did, that by going up hard he can draw contact and earn a trip to the line.
While the national consensus may seem to be that John Wall is the most talented freshman in the country, maybe even the best college player, the Jayhawks have their own star frosh. Cole and Sherron may be the leaders of this team, if the Jayhawks win it all this year, Professor X will be a major reason why. There’s a reason why Kentucky coach John Calipari wanted Professor X so bad.
