HURT BLOCKER
Berry ignores the pain to finish title quest
GLENDALE, Ariz. — The stakes couldn’t be higher, and Joel Berry II has been unable to hide his disappointment.
The North Carolina point guard has waited a year for this opportunity, to lead his team to a championship after last year’s loss at the buzzer to Villanova. And he can’t help but agonize about his current state, battling two sprained ankles. He will sometimes just close his eyes, and think about how different this tournament would have been for him if not for his rotten luck.
“It’s made me very frustrated,” he said, on the even of Monday night’s national championship game against Gonzaga.
Berry said his ankles felt better and were without the usual stiffness when he woke up Sunday morning. He still won’t magically be 100 percent Monday night. Hobbled, he will have to face one of the nation’s best point guards in Gonzaga’s Nigel Williams-Goss. But he still welcomes the challenge.
Sitting out or even playing less minutes isn’t even a consideration, though if this was February, he wouldn’t be playing.
“It’s all about heart and will, doing what I have to do to help this team out,” Berry said. “My job as a point guard is to make sure the guys are in the right spots, and be that vocal leader. I don’t have to score the ball to have an impact on the game.”
As a result of the ankle injuries, Berry has mostly struggled in the tournament. He is averaging just 12.2 points and 2.6 assists while shooting an anemic 28 percent from the field. The numbers are all down from his regular season outputs. Berry has hit just 8-of-34 3-point attempts. And even those statistics were inflated by one game, a 26-point performance against Butler in the Sweet 16, by far the healthiest he has been.
But the day after the Butler win, Berry re-aggravated his right ankle injury in practice he initially hurt in the tournament opener, and the next game, turned his left ankle. It’s no coincidence the junior made just 6-of-26 shots in the last two wins over Kentucky and Oregon.
He has lacked explosiveness on his drives, lift on his jump shot and does not have his usual level of lateral movement. He just hasn’t been the same player he was during the regular season, an All-ACC second team selection.
“My ankles aren’t as strong as they used to be,” Berry said. “I can take as much medicine as I want to, but that doesn’t help your strength at all. That takes the pain away to let me play. When I shoot, I have to think about it a little more, try to get my legs into it.”
It is his only option. He’s waited this long for another shot at the national championship game. Now it’s here, however limited physically he may be.