Considering
how easy it is, I’m fairly impressed at how few sportswriters have resorted to
a play on his surname to describe Aaron Craft. The lack of “Craft-y” puns*,
however, does not make up for journalists’ overreliance on the “coach’s son”
narrative to describe the Ohio State sophomore. A cursory reading of the
literature available on Craft would leave one with the impression of him as some
sort of basketball genius – Archimedes in Adidas or Newton in Nikes.**
*You have no idea how hard it was to avoid
falling into this trap, too. In fact, my (three) working titles were all some
play on the dude’s last name. It’s not that I didn’t realize the irony – it was
just soooo easy.
**Fibonacci in Filas? Plato in Pumas?
Riemann in Reeboks? Cauchy in Converse?!
To be sure,
Craft is a good player. He runs the Buckeye offense effectively, averaging nearly
five assists per game. Scouts and analysts also praise his defense and his
stats bear that out as well – Craft led the Big Ten* in steals this year.
*Am I actually supposed to write B1G?
Nevertheless,
that doesn’t make him smart. That pesky defense often leads to bad fouls (see OSU’s
win vs Syracuse in this year's tournament) and relegates Craft to standing at
Thad Matta’s side for long period of time. Not sitting on the bench mind you,
but literally at the coach’s heel, barking orders to his teammates. Many choose
to take this as further evidence of Craft’s basketball IQ. I just think it’s
annoying.
Also, for a
coach’s son, he doesn’t know the rules very well. On Saturday against Kansas,
he cost OSU whatever small chance it had at a tie when he committed a lane
violate on his second free throw with two seconds remaining. He did this by crashing
the boards as soon as the ball left his hand. That’s totally fine in the NBA,
but in college, player must wait until the ball touches the rim to enter the
lane. Craft was whistled and Kansas got the ball to secure its two point
victory.
Now that by
itself is no sin. There have been plenty of other players, some much more
talented than Craft who have wilted under the bright lights of the March. Chris
Webber was Naismith player of the year his sophomore season,* but is best
remembered for calling a timeout in the NCAA championship game when his team
had none. Fred Brown did something even worse. The only difference is that none of those players were ceaselessly
praised for their hardwood savvy.
*According to the NCAA, that technically
didn’t happen. Can they sanction a grad student?
There’s no
doubt that Craft plays hard and is an asset to his team, but it’s also pretty
clear that he isn’t as smart as people like to believe he is.
And yes, I
did have OSU winning the tournament. No, I’m not bitter about it at all. Why do
you ask?
Socrates in Sauconys
ReplyDeleteTebow in Birkenstocks?
ReplyDeleteLofton in loafers
ReplyDeleteEinstein in Etnies
ReplyDeleteVoltaire in Vibrams!
ReplyDeleteTesla in Timb' s
ReplyDeleteCocker in crocks
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