This is Boatright’s Journey, Time to Leave Shabazz Comparisons & References Behind
Photo Credit: Ian Bethune – SOX & Dawgs
The Huskies trailed 39-34 to Bryant on Friday night, as the game hit the under sixteen media timeout. Senior point guard Ryan Boatright was heading to the line and as the game resumed, calmly hit both free throws to cut the deficit to three.
After a Bulldogs triple, the Aurora, IL native promptly answered on the offensive end, with a three of his own. Twenty seconds later, he easily stole the ball from point guard Hunter Ware and took it all the way for a jam, that brought the Gampel crowd to its’ feet.
It was a 7-3 run that pulled the Huskies to within one, all sparked by the senior leader. Ryan has taken over the reigns from former Huskies legend, Shabazz Napier, who, although he is now in a Miami Heat uniform, with his name inducted in the Huskies of Honor, it is already apparent that critics and the media, may make it hard for Boatright to escape Napier’s legacy.
During Boatright’s post-game interviews throughout the exhibition slate and Friday night, a number of questions he was faced with, had a Shabazz reference to it.
‘You saw Shabazz do it so many times last year…,’ was one and ‘was there a point this offseason when you were playing that you realized that Shabazz wasn’t going to be here…’ was another, following the win on Friday.
Boatright has answered all questions without hesitation, but hopefully it will be left behind following opening night.
This is Boat’s team now and he lived up to and exceeded many expectations coming into the opener on Friday. He filled the stat sheet. Twenty-four points, eight rebounds, five assists, four steals and one block.
“It’s been awhile since I stuffed it like that,” Boatright said following the win. “I’m doing anything and everything to win the game. The steals came with me picking it up on the defensive end and I knew that I had to help the bigs with the rebounding. They [Bryant] shoot a lot of three’s, so I knew I was going to have a lot of long rebounds, so I had to be there for that. As far as the points, if I do the other things that I just said, the points are going to come.”
After a shaky first half that saw him miss a couple of easy shots, he went two-for-six from the field, he had a short memory and scored sixteen during the second twenty minutes.
That second-half performance was a testament to how much he has grown, something that may not have been there earlier in his UConn career, as Boat noted after the game.
“It just comes from maturity,” he said. “I think the first couple of years, I would’ve gotten down on myself, missing a few easy shots like that and having some careless turnovers that I had.”
“I take pride in my defense, but I was getting beat way too much off the dribble in the first half,” he continued. “Me being a veteran and a leader of this team, I know I need to correct those things myself. If the team sees me with my head down and getting mad, they’re going to do it, so I know that they’re all looking at me and I just need to correct myself.”
Boatright has been through the fire, playing alongside Napier and sharing the spotlight.
Now?
The spotlight is all his and he understands what it’s going to take to obtain what this program wants to accomplish this season, his last.
“We just won a national championship, so we’re going to get everyone’s best shot,” Boatright said. “We aren’t going to blow everybody out, so we need to have that resiliency, stay together and grind out those tough wins.”
Let’s just hope he’s allowed to put his own stamp on things this season, instead of having to live up to unreal expectations, from a crowd that wants to compare him to Shabazz, every step of the way.
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