Winston Churchill said it about Russia during World War II: “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” But he might as well have been describing Coach Chris Wirth’s Rye Country Day Boys’ basketball team in 2015.
By Mitch Silver
Winston Churchill said it about Russia during World War II: “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” But he might as well have been describing Coach Chris Wirth’s Rye Country Day Boys’ basketball team in 2015.
First, let’s count the plusses. Their coach has said repeatedly, “I have the two best guards in the league.” And the numbers back him up. Case in point, the recent Brunswick game: seniors Salim Green and Vincent Conn combined to score 53 of the Wildcats’ 65 points on the evening. Next, there’s the big front line. Junior Chris Picard goes 6’4” and his sidekick, starting sophomore Manny Chukwu, is several inches taller. They should be Windexing the boards against almost every team they face.
Jared Jones adds speed off the bench to a backcourt that’s already lightning fast. Matty Farber plays tough defense and Colin O’Meara can stretch defenses with his shooting; he nailed three 3-pointers against Hamden Hall in another recent win.
So, you ask, what’s the problem? First off, if your guards scored 53 points out of 65, that means everyone else tallied just a dozen for all 32 minutes. Hmmm.
Then, too, this is a team that can’t stand prosperity. Back in December they defeated lowly Hamden Hall 66-35. Two months later, on Senior Recognition Day, they had to claw their way back from an 8-0 deficit to eke out a 71-64 win, and then only because the Hornets’ T.J. Roundtree, who had already scored 26 points, was forced from the game with a bloody cut five minutes from the end.
“I hate to say it,” Coach Wirth remarked after a recent contest, “but we play to the level of the opposition.” Maybe that’s why the Wildcats barely beat 5-6 Greens Farms twice, the second win coming only after another heroic fourth-quarter comeback last month.
Of course, their biggest loss on the season, 60-40, was at the hands of Millbrook, a team that towers over the Wildcats and everyone else. And even when they’ve been down by 8-0 or even 10-0 to start the game, the locals always come fighting back. Even so, Coach Wirth hates to go man-to-man on defense, because “we’re nothing special when we’re playing man.” And he still has to shuffle Picard and Chukwu in and out to keep them from tiring. “When they start to tire, my big guys stop moving their feet and they start reaching in and fouling.” Foul trouble has hampered Country Day all season long.
So, the question is: which Wildcat team will walk out onto the floor when they host their first tournament game next week?
