Take a Load Off C.J.

For a number of years now the basketball locker room at Wake Forest has been closed to the media, as it is most places. The arrangement never bothered me as long as I could get access to those I needed to talk with. Besides, I’ve spent enough time in locker rooms, which are usually crowded, smelly, tight spaces where it’s as hard for you to get out of everyone else’s way as it is for everyone else to get out of yours’.

But one condition imposed by the NIT Preseason Shootout is that all locker rooms be open. So while we were waiting on Coach Bzdelik to address the media in the interview room, I took the opportunity to duck into the Wake locker room just for old-time’s sake if nothing else. And what I saw was C.J. Harris sitting low in a stuffed chair in the outer-room (the only area we were allowed to venture), where he was facing the music.

Harris, as you’ve probably heard by now, had an exceedingly rough night in the Deacons’ 90-69 loss to Virginia Commonwealth. Stripped time and time again in his efforts to get the ball upcourt against the Rams’ swarming press, he finished with 10 turnovers. His comments were included in my game story.

“In the second half we broke down a little bit and I’ll take a lot of blame for that,” Harris said. “I wasn’t as strong with the ball as you’re supposed to be as a point guard. I need to do a lot better job than I did.

“They did a great job getting up and into us. We’ve just got to execute better and a lot of that deals with my part at the point.”

My question was: Do you think people are making too much of the point guard situation on your team, or is that the story?

“I think that’s the story,’’ Harris said. “I have all the confidence in my skills at the point. My teammates and coaches do as well. We’ll just put it together.’‘

Life is about controlling what we can control and dealing with the rest as best we can. Harris, as was glaringly obvious last night, is not a natural point guard. He’s a wing guard, and from what we could see last year during his impressive freshman season, he’s a good one. But he can’t control the reality that Wake Forest has, at best, one scholarship point guard and that guy, freshman Tony Chennault, will miss at least the next eight to 10 weeks while recovering from a broken foot.

Later I asked Bzdelik to comment on the impact of point guard play in the game. Joey Rodriquez, a tough, savvy senior who has played tons of college basketball, committed only one turnover in 30 minutes and dictated the flow of the game in such a way the Rams, as a team, had only seven. Rodriquez also scored 15 of his 18 points in the second half while VCU was pulling away.

Bzdelik essentially declined to answer, which I understood. To do so would have been piling on a player that already had enough on him.

Bzdelik instead did his best to put Harris’ predicament in perspective.

“C.J. is playing his heart out,’’ Bzdelik said. “In fairness to him we’re asking him to do something he’s never done before.

“But this is a team game, and we all have to play our part in it. We, I as a coach, everybody on this team. We all have to be better. And we will. And we will get back to work.’‘

If Harris is going to settle into the position over the next couple of months, he’s going to need all the help he can get. Last night he got precious little, and his teammates were the first to know it.

“C.J. got hounded,’’ sophomore Ari Stewart said. “I don’t know how many times they took the ball from him.

“But it’s not C.J.’s fault. It’s the other four people’s fault. It’s a team game.”

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