Wally Szczerbiak Best Basketball Player In The Country

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

I still think Lamar Odom would probably be drafted ahead of Wally,
but Wally's a definite top five draft choice in the upcoming draft.

Bill Koch
Cincinatti Post
Best in America? Wally makes case

OXFORD, Ohio - The best all-around college basketball player in the land
belongs at Duke or Kentucky. North Carolina, maybe, or UCLA.

Certainly not at Miami University in the Mid-American Conference, a league
disparaged more frequently than the legal profession.

Talk about pressure. On the same day that Sports Illustrated names Miami
forward Wally Szczerbiak as the best all-around player in the country, his
task is to prove it against 18th-ranked Tennessee.

''There was a lot of pressure to come out and play well tonight,''
Szczerbiak said Thursday. ''I haven't even read the article. If I would
have read that article today, it would have totally screwed me up somehow
tonight.''

Not likely. Nothing was going to ruin this day for Szczerbiak, who scored
34 points and had 12 rebounds for the

RedHawks in their 68-62 victory.

Tennessee tried to play Szczerbiak man-to-man. First, 6-7 freshman Vincent
Yarbrough guarded him. He had no chance. Then came 6-6 Rashard Lee and 6-9
Isiah Victor. Szczerbiak, 6-8, had 17 points by halftime.

In the second half, Vols coach Jerry Green tried a different approach by
putting 6-3 guard Brandon Wharton on Szczerbiak. Result: Wally scored 17
more points.

''I thought Wharton did a pretty good job,'' Green said. ''I thought
Rashard Lee did a pretty good job, but again the guy gets 34. And that's 34
out of 68. If my math's right, that's close to half. They had one other
person in double figures.''

Said Wharton: ''We should have come up with some kind of game plan to focus
strictly on Szczerbiak.''

If you live in this area and you're a serious fan of college basketball,
you need to drive up here and see this guy play as many times as you can.
It doesn't matter if you're a University of Cincinnati fan or a Xavier fan
or a Kentucky fan. Szczerbiak is special.

He can play in the post or on the perimeter. He scores in every way
imaginable. He rebounds, he plays defense. Last night, he had a dunk, a
fadeaway jumper, three three-pointers, a follow shot, a jumper off the
dribble and a layup.

In a game-winning, four-minute stretch late in the second half, he scored
eight points, had three rebounds, led a fast break and made two key free
throws. He played 40 minutes.

''We still haven't seen Wally's best game,'' said Miami coach Charlie
Coles, ''because when Wally really moves, they're going to have to have
five or six guys on him because he'll tire all those guys out.''

Szczerbiak will be a marked man the rest of the season thanks to SI. But
he'll worry about that later. Thursday night he was too busy celebrating.
When the game ended, the best all-around college basketball player in
America didn't want to leave the court. He was in the middle of a swarm of
students, hoisted on their shoulders with his girlfriend nearby.

Last year, when the students swarmed the court after the

RedHawks upset Xavier, Szczerbiak didn't allow himself to fully savor the
moment.

It was a rare tactical mistake.

''I was going to make sure I was going to soak it in a little more than
last year,'' Szczerbiak said.

''It was just a great experience. It was a positive riot, no more of this
negative rioting like last spring or like the past two weeks. It was
positive, and it was good for the school, I think.''

Some great players have passed through this area in recent years. Danny
Fortson, Tyrone Hill, Brian Grant, Nick Van Exel, all accomplished
athletes, all now employed by the NBA.

None possesses the total game that Szczerbiak has. You have to go back to
1986 when Ron Harper played for Miami to find a player with comparable
skills.

I don't know if Szczerbiak really is the best all-around player in the
country. How do you measure something like that? But I'm willing to bet
that no one played better than Szczerbiak did Thursday.

                        Publication date: 11-20-98

                         

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