Focusing In on Walker’s Chin
Over the past two years, I know I’ve been asked at least 90 times about Ty Walker, which would make it for every minute he’s played. It’s 13 minutes against ACC competition, all of them logged as a freshman.
And I understand the fascination, certainly this season when he holds such a key to the kind of season the Deacons will end up having.
Walker was never the second best center in high school basketball or the 17th best overall. And it was ludicrous to think he was based on his ranking by some scouting service. All you had to do was see he averaged 12 points and 7 rebounds as a senior in high school against guys he towered over, and then take a look at his yearling, under-developed frame, to know that Walker was not going to walk into the ACC and play meaningful minutes. The rankings—which obviously were based on what he might some day do and not on anything he’d ever done—didn’t help him one bit. My sense it they hurt him, if nothing more by inflating his opinion of his game to the point he could not be talked into redshirting his first season.
At the first media gathering of his sophomore season, he mentioned the lobbying of the coaches to have him sit out the season and prepare himself physically and mentally for the challenge.
“And in highsight,’’ he said, “I probably should have.’‘
But ultimately none of that will make any difference if he doesn’t avail himself to the tremendous opportunity he has as a junior. He’s the man inside for an ACC team. He’s probably going to play as many minutes as he can play. Freshman Carson Desrosiers is big and possesses some skills, but he’s got his share of work to do to make a serious impact this year. And as far as centers go, there’s absolutely nobody else.
You’ve all read what new coach Jeff Bzdelik has had to say about Walker.
“All you have to do is look at him and see a long, athletic body,’’ Bzdelik said. “Our approach with Ty is this—very positive. Very positive. He’s a wonderful young man, so that’s easy. I don’t think he’s had a lot of confidence. So to me it’s like `The only time I’m going to get mad at you son is if you put your head down. And don’t ever put your head down.’ He put his head down a couple of times when I first got here and I went up to him and I simply took his chin and I lifted it and I said `Hey, what did we talk about? All I want you to do is do this for me: Play as hard as you possibily can and give me as much energy as you possibly can and if you don’t learn another thing, by accident you’ll get yourself 10 rebounds, you’ll get yourself six or seven or eight blocked shots, you’ll get some deflections and you’ll create havoc around the rim and you’ll probably get yourself two or three dunks. And if you do that, you’ll have a positive impact on the game.
“So I’m going to try to keep things very simple. `All I want you to do is just run from rim to rim as hard as you can, be as active as you can be as long as you can, stay positive and if you make a mistake, who cares? The next thing is the most important thing that you do. Just give me that. And if you do, that’s a good thing. And we can expand from there, yes. Let’s do that for starters.’
“And that’s been my approach.’‘
So if you want to gauge Walker’s progress this season, no need to look at the stat sheet to see that he had 7 points and 9 rebounds in 29 minutes against undersized Guilford. Instead I was watching his chin. It stayed up most of the time, but there were times it dropped. And there were times the coaches yelled instructions to him that he paid no visible heed. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he didn’t hear. But if Walker’s chin stays on the ground, it’s going to be a long, long season for the Deacons.
If he can keep it up, who knows?