JON WALLACE: IS HE PERFECT?
By Gee Kane
Johnny Chan is described as poker’s “perfect player”. This year college basketball fans may witness the basketball equivalent of Mr. Chan. Many analysts have begun to wonder out loud if Georgetown’s Jonathan Wallace is in fact a perfect basketball player. And by many analysts I mean some drunken season ticket holders in section 114 at the Verizon Center.
Jonathan Wallace, the Georgetown Hoyas senior point guard will start his 57th consecutive Big East game this month, a streak dating back to his first league game as a freshman when he logged 39 minutes in a road win over Pitt. In the three seasons since then, Jonathan has guided the Hoyas as the team’s point guard from Big East obscurity to the Sweet Sixteen twice, the Final Four once, and the Big East regular season and tournament championships. According to Tee’s Weekly statisticians, Wallace last made error as a junior in a preseason game at Sparkman High School in Harvest, Alabama.
If Jonathan Wallace is the perfect player then it is his sweet shooting stroke that embodies his flawlessness. The senior’s unique high arching jumper begins at an angle parallel to the backboard and usually touches neither the backboard nor the rim as it splashes the net. The government major has increased his shooting percentages in all three major shooting categories in the each of his first three seasons.
His field goal percentage has jumped 12 percentage points from 38 percent to 51 percent. Jonathan’s free throw percentage also increased, going from 78 percent to 87 percent, a free-throw percentage that now makes him the all-time career leader for Georgetown basketball. His three-point shooting is as perfect as anyone's in the country. He never seems to force a three and has a knack for hitting a three to change the momentum in a game.
The biggest three-pointer for Wallace’s career and possibly the biggest in Hoya history came in East Rutherford, New Jersey, last March against North Carolina in the East Regional Final. With the Hoyas trailing by three and time running out on their season, Wallace took a pass from Jesse Sapp and threw up one his trademark perfect rainmakers to send the game into overtime and the Hoyas to the Final Four for the first time since they painted an arch on the floor in college hoops.
His three-point shooting percentage has followed the similar steep flight as his shots, growing from a respectable 37 percent his freshman year to an out-of-this-world 49 percent. Jonathan Wallace now leads a long line of great Georgetown three-point shooters from Horace Broadnax to Brendan Gaughan in career three-point percentage. He is also closing in on the Hoyas all-time three-pointers made record held by Kevin Braswell.
Discussions of Wallace’s possible faultless games have led to questions debating who, if anyone was the last perfect basketball player. The answer is Jesus Christ. And he only played two years of JuCo ball at Nazareth Tech, which at the time was not a Division I school.
Dr. John J. DeGioia, current president of Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in America, has made no official comment whether he believes Jonathan Wallace’s is infallible or if he is the only infallible baller ever. However, it is important to note when considering Dr. DeGioia’s eerie and awkward silence that while he is the president of the Jesuit institution, he is not himself a Jesuit.
Dr. Jerome Miller, a Philosophy professor, God expert and Georgetown graduate has said, “It is quite possible that we are witnessing God reveal himself to us as the perfect college basketball point guard.”
If we were to attempt to quantify what numbers a perfect guard would be it would start with shooting numbers, include assist to turnover ratio and certainly the overall results of the team. Well, Jonathan Wallace is now unquestionably the best shooter that ever donned the blue and gray, he has 100 more assists in his career than turnovers and the Hoyas have amassed an impressive record of 76-30 in his three years.
Also, consider Georgetown did not go to the Final Four in any of the previous 20 years before Jonathan led them to Atlanta last March. Therefore, we can now, like Johnny Chan, go all in. The only logical conclusion one can draw is that by God, Jonathan is the closest thing to God we have ever seen in a college basketball uniform.
Enjoy Jonathan Wallace’s last season, because according to Dr. Miller a perfect basketball player comes along “once every 2,000 years or so”.