New UL senior point guard Christian Wright knows what genuine commitment looks like.
His girlfriend Katie drove from their home state of Georgia to Oregon by herself a few years ago after Wright transferred from Georgia to Oregon State.
Then on June 10 around noon Pacific time, she joined Wright and his Rottweiler on a journey from Oregon to Lafayette that ended three days later to begin his final collegiate season in Lafayette with the Ragin’ Cajuns.
“I’ve got to hold that down, that’s a real woman,” Wright said of the committed relationship. “Not a lot of people would do that, for sure.
“We’re the same age. She’s working and she knows I’m chasing my dreams, so she knew wherever I got, she was going to go with me. She wasn’t never, ‘I don’t want to leave, because we just got here.’ It was more, ‘Wherever you’re going, I’m going.’ ”
Wright also thinks he sees a good basketball opportunity at UL.
“From my other schools, you could just tell that coach Bob (Marlin) is genuine,” Wright said. “Since I committed, he called me almost every day just checking on me. None of my other coaches did that. I don’t even know if any of my other coaches had my parents’ number.”
Wright said he also appreciates Marlin’s style of coaching.
“I also like that he gives his assistant coaches the freedom to be who they are,” Wright said. “I’ve seen power-hungry head coaches that won’t even let their assistant coaches speak in practice. The fact that he lets everybody be themselves and he’s coached good guards in the past helped.”
The 6-foot-3, 185-pound Wright originally played at Milton High in Alpharetta, Georgia, before finishing his high school career at The Skill Factory Prep team in Woodstock, Georgia.
After initially committing to Rick Pitino and Iona, Wright ended up playing in all 31 games for Georgia as a freshman, averaging 5.3 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 22 minutes a game.
The problem was coach Tom Crean was fired after that season and the new coach made it clear he was bringing in his own players, so Wright selected Oregon State after considering SMU, Ohio, Kansas State and Central Florida.
A leg injury limited him to only five starts in 19 games in his first season with the Beavers. Last season, Wright started 14 of 29 games but his scoring average dipped from 5.3 points to 3.3 points.
When he signed with UL in early June, Marlin detailed how Wright fills a specific need at point guard with the Cajuns, but Wright believes he can get his scoring prowess back.
“My jump shot has gotten way better,” he said. “Injuries to a leg will mess with a jump shot.”
Wright also believes his scoring decrease was party because of coaching philosophy.
“A point guard has to do everything, so it was either your coach telling you to pull back,” he said. “As a point guard, you can’t just score. If your teammates are just standing around the arc, you just scoring is not helping the team. At Georgia, it was kind of that.”
Wright wants to be a triple-threat point guard again.
“I can definitely score with the best of them,” he said. “When I talked to coach coming here, I told him I just wanted to show my whole game, not just pieces of it. I want to show my offense, defense, playmaking, all of it. I know I can score. I feel like it (scoring average) will jump 10 points at least.”
One thing Crean taught him at Georgia should benefit the Cajuns.
“Before I met coach Crean, I was a leader by example,” said Wright, who said the Georgia coach would call him out in practice until he became a vocal leader. “I’m going to run and you’re not going to beat me in any sprints. Now I can show you how to do this, and I can also do it as hard as I can.
“Even at Georgia as a freshman, I had seniors following me as the starting point guard and it was the same type of deal when I went to Oregon State.”
UL assistant coach Phillip Shumpert helped convince Wright that the Cajuns were being genuine with him in the recruiting process.
“Coaches say they know you or watched you play, but he (Shumpert) was saying things from eighth grade and middle school,” Wright said. “So I knew he had really watched me. That was really good.”
Wright said much of his family is from Birmingham, Alabama, so the Sun Belt league trips will be perfect for reconnecting after two seasons at Oregon State.
“There’s going to be a bunch of people in the crowd,” he said. “I’m ready for it.”
