The Georgetown Hoyas know one thing for certain about the NCAA Tournament: Chris Wright, will be back, and at full strength, too. The senior point guard returned to practice on Monday after missing a little more than two weeks with a broken left hand and will play without limitation in the tournament.
The Hoyas will need Wright to perform like he did before breaking his hand. (Photo by Julianne Deno)
“He’s not feeling any pain,” head coach John Thompson III said. “After two full days he’s participated in every drill. He feels fine. He doesn’t need any protection. We’re—hopefully—business as usual.”
Wright’s return is one of the few constants the Hoyas can look to as they prepare for their opening game in Chicago. After winning eight straight Big East games at one point, Georgetown has lost its last four games by an average of 14.5 points. There’s no telling which version of the Hoyas will show up on Friday. Even their opponent was up in the air until late Wednesday night.
The sixth-seeded Hoyas will play Virginia Commonwealth (24-11, 12-6 CAA), who defeated USC in a First Four game Wednesday night to advance to the second round. The Rams, one of the last at-large teams in the tournament, plays an up-tempo style and likes to press.
By all accounts, Wright will be fully capable of helping Georgetown beat the Rams’ pressure. He said that he is pain-free and will play without any kind of brace or support on his hand, and his teammates reported that he practiced without any hesitation. In fact, when Wright fell in practice, he caught himself with the injured hand, giving everyone a chance to see the extent of his recovery.
“Everybody stopped for a minute. It got quiet in the gym,” senior guard Austin Freeman said. “But he got back up, and we got back to practice.”
If Wright can play at the same level he did before the injury, the Hoyas are due for a major boost. The senior is Georgetown’s second-leading scorer with 13.1 points per game and he finished third in the Big East in assists with 5.4 per game. Wright sees no reason for his contributions to change.
“I’m not going to act different about anything,” he said. “My teammates, they all noticed that I was out there just playing. I wasn’t favoring anything. I wasn’t trying to shy away from it. I was shooting left-handed layups, making left-handed layups. I was just playing my normal game.”
The most important aspect of Wright’s game is that he makes his teammates better. In his absence, Georgetown’s shooting percentage declined and the offense’s ability to create shots suffered (against Connecticut, the Hoyas assisted on just six of the 22 baskets they made).
The most notable decline in play came in the frontcourt. Senior center Julian Vaughn failed to convert a single field goal after Wright hurt his hand, but none of the Hoyas’ big men have played well during the recent losing streak. They’ll need to step up in the tournament. VCU has a versatile forward in senior Jamie Skeen, who had 16 points and nine rebounds against USC, and Purdue forward JaJuan Johnson, the Big Ten Player of the Year, is potentially waiting in the next round.
Whether Wright’s return is a panacea for the Hoyas’ big men and the team’s woes in general remains to be seen. But with Wright, Freeman, and Vaughn all playing in what could be their last game in a Georgetown uniform, they know they can’t afford to dwell on past mistakes.
“At this point in time we all need to feel confident regardless of how we did in the regular season,” Wright said. “Everyone’s 0-0 now, so it’s just a matter of us going out there and executing to the best of our abilities.”
