|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
High School |
| |
||||||
| Wednesday, July 16 |
||||||
| Bracing for Bracey By Chad Konecky SchoolSports.com | ||||||
|
Beige Formica is about the only thing Bracey Wright allows in his face these days. The tabletop décor inside the Carrollton, Texas, Kentucky Fried Chicken on Denton Road is the teen's most familiar dining surface, but even if basketball defenders do pull within a Coke's sip of The Colony High's (Texas) gifted junior shooting guard, it doesn't do them much good.
Wright stands 6-foot-3, weighs 184 pounds (despite a standing dinner order of KFC's Honey BBQ Crunch) and is arguably the nation's sharpest-shooting scholastic guard. As a sophomore last season, Wright hit 44 percent from beyond the 3-point arc, 57 percent of his two-point field-goal attempts and averaged 18.7 points per game for a team that went 29-3. So far this year, Wright is pouring in 21.2 points per game and knocking down 52 percent of his treys (45-for-87). As a result, The Colony has raced out to an 18-1 record (through Jan. 19) and a No. 1 ranking in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. That's the gist, the surface, the coating, the honey-barbecue glaze. Beneath that polished packaging is what's irresistible. Balanced high above his size-16 feet and flanked by his condor-like wingspan sits Wright's ever-impressionable, 16-year-old head. It's a head he protects not with a helmet or sunscreen, mind you, but with the filters he puts on both the data he digests and the dictum he spits out. Wright's basketball ability appears as limitless as it is bountiful. But if his playing potential ever evolves anywhere near as thoroughly as his uncommon maturity has, he'll be a gift for the ages from the basketball gods. "I try not to let the attention I'm getting from schools and the press overwhelm me so much," says Wright, whose play at South Carolina's Nike Peach Jam this past summer with his AAU Dallas Texans squad made him an instant candidate for Caller ID phone service. "I just take it in stride. I look at [reporters' calls] as me having a conversation with a friend. I try not to be so worried about the things I say; I just try to answer questions the best I can. "I don't say very much on the court. I'm not very flashy," he adds. "I admire players who do the small things. Maybe that's not interesting." On the contrary. "He's pretty refreshing, isn't he?" says The Colony's 14-year head coach, Tommy Thomas, 43. "In this era of egos, he doesn't seem to have one. He's a very competitive player, but if he scores 30 or he scores 10, he's the same player. He's not demonstrative or selfish on the floor. He makes it fun for everyone who plays with him, and he certainly makes it fun to coach him. "Bracey's been given a lot of attention the last two years," adds Thomas. "He's growing into it, but he's always been mature and he remains one of the few kids who thinks before he runs his mouth. That's really not a quality that's common in most teenage boys." Neither is 52 percent shooting from 3-point land. Bracey Wright resides in a different basketball stratosphere. He is one of only three Cougars players ever to earn a varsity call-up as a freshman, starting the team's last seven district games during the 1998-99 season and averaging a little less than 10 points while shooting 91 percent from the free-throw line. As a sophomore, his foul-shooting percentage dipped to 81 percent -- a drop-off that falls somewhere between inconsequential and barely noteworthy considering he clicked at almost 60 percent from the field ... as a perimeter player. Mention his unwordly shooting touch and Wright seems momentarily indulgent before quickly transitioning into a heartfelt self-critique about what's missing from his game. "My range is crazy," admits Wright, who also pulled down 4.3 rebounds per game last season. "I've always been able to shoot the ball real well. I guess I get that from my dad, but most people [who saw him play] say I'm even better. "Last year, my defense wasn't one of my strong points," adds Wright. "Going into last summer, I had to focus on it, and I've been taking my time with the fundamentals. It's coming along. I'm working hard, but I need to be better." There is genetic precedent for Wright's athletic blessings. His father, Carl, is a former standout basketball player at Roosevelt High (Dallas, Texas) and Southern Methodist University and was a fifth-round draft pick of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1985. Wright's paternal uncle Ed, now a Dallas County sheriff, was a football sensation at South Oak Cliff High (Dallas), while his paternal uncle Rynn was a hoop standout at Texas A&M. And Wright's 9-year-old brother, Phillip, is already excelling in four sports. "He comes from a great athletic family, and [Bracey] has an opportunity to be as good, if not better, than any of them," says Thomas. "Bracey's athletic ability allows him to hurt you in almost any way," says junior co-captain and point guard Deron Williams, 16. "His pure athleticism is amazing." Wright, whose parents make themselves unannounced guests at most games for fear of making him nervous, knows it will take more than his own gasp-inducing highlight reels to leave a mark on The Colony's robust boys' basketball program. The District 6-5A team has enjoyed 12 straight winning seasons, highlighted by five district titles and eight postseason berths, including a run to the Region 1 championship game in '94. But Wright also knows that this season is his first chance to mold the Cougars in his image. He is a co-captain. He is offensive option No. 1. And, for the first basketball campaign of perhaps many more to follow, Wright will be expected to man a team's helm. "I'm definitely more experienced now and wiser as far as the things I do on the court," says Wright, who counts the University of Texas, Missouri and Seton Hall among his initial collegiate preferences. "I try not to rush and try to let the game come to me. "I always try to put my team first," he continues. "I know if I play well, then the rest of this team will feed off my energy. And if everything's going right, we'll achieve team goals and individual goals at the same time. We're like a big family. We all know our roles and what we need to do to win."
Material from SchoolSports.com.Visit their web site at www.schoolsports.com | |
|||||
|
|
