Thomas grows up with game-winning pass
By ANDREW SOUKUP
Sports Columnist
Chris Thomas dribbled down the court, bouncing the ball in his left hand, pointing to his teammates with his right.
About five feet in front of him, crouched in his defensive stance, Pitts-burgh's Brandin Knight started yapping at Thomas, goading him on, egging the sophomore to challenge him.
"This is how it's supposed to be," the senior barked at the sophomore.
Thomas just smiled. Clock winding down, game on the line, two of the Big East's best guards squaring off. "Those kinds of situations don't come along too often," he said.
Normally, Thomas thrives on the one-on-one matchups. In fact, he often thrives so much on them that the game and even the team get forgotten as Thomas wages his own personal war against the opposing point guard.
A couple weeks ago, Thomas found himself in a similar situation at Boston College. He was facing Troy Bell, the clock was winding down, the game was on the line with two of the Big East's best guard's squaring off.
In Boston, Thomas waited until the clock ticked to less than five seconds, dribbled across the lane, and forced up an ugly shot that hit more of the floor than it did the rim, and the Irish needed overtime to escape from Conte Forum with a win.
So here smiled Thomas again, with the game on the line, the fans going nuts. He waited until the clock hit five seconds, took Knight across the floor laterally, elevated into the air, and … passed?
That's not the Chris Thomas fans rip into for playing too out of control, for forcing up ugly shots at inopportune times, for playing more like a future NBA guard than a college point.
That's not the Chris Thomas who is merely shooting 36 percent from the field in Big East play.
That's not the Chris Thomas who, despite handling point guard duties, leads the Irish in shots attempted.
Coach Mike Brey loves to talk about how Thomas plays best when the lights are brightest. But when the spotlight shined brighter than it had before, Thomas passed.
Somehow Thomas had rifled a pass between a horde of Pittsburgh defenders to Torin Francis, who grabbed the pass, flipped it up off the backboard with his left hand and then exploded with jubilation as the ball floated through the net, giving the Irish a 66-64 lead. Sixth-tenths of a second remained, but the game was basically over.
In the 32 seconds between Knight's game-tying 3-pointer and Francis' game-winning 4-footer, Thomas grew up. A lot.
What was Thomas thinking when Knight started flapping his trap, when he said, "This is how it's supposed to be"?
"He must have been thinking individually," Thomas shrugged after the game. "I was thinking about the team."
Thomas called 2-Cross, which had Matt Carroll and Dan Miller coming off screens out to the wings as decoys, simultaneously clearing out the middle of the floor for Thomas and giving Francis room to work around the bottom of the basket. In a perfect world, Thomas would first penetrate the paint and then look down low.
"When he looks at me with that confidence in his eyes," said Brey, who had a timeout left but let his sophomore call the play, "I'll second the motion."
A few seconds later – Brey told him to wait until seven seconds were left, but Thomas waited two more ticks just to be sure the Panthers couldn't get another shot off – Thomas came alive. He dribbled across the lane, elevated for a wild shot, saw two Pittsburgh defenders elevated with him, and noticed six other players on the court turned to look for a shot.
Francis was the only one whose eyes were on Thomas, not the ball. He slid across the lane and into Thomas' line of sight, grabbed a pass and flipped it home. "Catch and shoot, really," Francis said. "It was pretty simple."
The crowd exploded, but Francis didn't hear it — at first. He was too busy letting a primal scream escape from his throat and slapping high-fives with Thomas to hear the deafening roar inside the Joyce Center.
"It was one of the biggest shots I've made," he admitted.
Sure, six-tenths of a second remained, but Cornette knocked away the inbounds pass to end the game. Sure, officials said they had to review to see if there was any more time left on the clock, but the game was over. Two hundred-plus students on the court with the fate of the game in the balance tends to bring new meaning to the phrase "home-court advantage."
Thomas is still learning the nuances of playing point guard, of how to pass the ball to teammates, of how to balance his incredible athleticism with necessary prudence. He scored 24 points against Pittsburgh, but few will remember any of his baskets.
His last pass, on the other hand …
"I told him he cheated because he was supposed to take the shot," a bewildered Knight said after the game. "I said, `It was just me and you. And you cheated and passed.'"
Who said cheaters never prosper?
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Monday, February 10, 2003
