Freshman guard dazzles in debut performance

The IU men's basketball fans got to welcome one of the newest members to the Hoosiers squad last Friday night. Fifty-six seconds into the game, this youngster stepped behind the arc and lofted a shot that landed perfectly in the hoop. \nLadies and gentleman, meet freshman guard Bracey Wright. \nWright has been making waves with Hoosier fans since Midnight Madness, and has played basketball to both near perfection and the crowd's delight.\n"Bracey can be a good player," IU coach Mike Davis said. "He's got to continue to work and try to improve everyday. He's a good guy and a special player. When kids have that (talent) they tend to act a certain way, but he's just really good."\nWright didn't stop wooing the crowd with his first three-point jump shot. He helped the Hoosiers jump out to an early lead in their 97-56 victory over Athletes in Action by dishing out assists, grabbing rebounds and scoring. Not long after Wright hit his first shot and assisted a senior guard Kyle Hornsby three, he showed the crowd his jumping skills.\nWright followed a fast break lay-up miss by junior center George Leach and scored a put-back dunk off the miss. The crowd went crazy, while Wright headed down the court to set-up for defense. It was all seriousness on the court for the Texas native.\n"He dunks the rebound the other night and it looks like he didn't even strain," Hornsby said. "That's impressive to me, because I'm never going to do that, ever. If I go up and dunk one, you're going to see a lot of straining. It just impresses me so much the way he does things and it looks effortless; it looks like he's not even trying. It's something he does and it looks so fluid."\nWright credits that "effortless look" to his high school coach in The Colony, Tex. His coach, Wright said, was the one that sat him down and told him how playing could look and be easy for him.\nIt was also his high school coach that told him to let the game become him, and it would just come naturally.\n"(The court) feels like home," Wright said. "I never have a worry, I just play. My high school coach put it in my head and now it looks effortless."\nAlthough Wright has talent that allows his game to be solid even if he's not all there mentally, Wright still has areas of his game he wants to work on.\nMost notably, his focus during practice and games. Hornsby said that while Wright's getting away with the lack of focus right now, during the Big Ten season, he could be even better if he keeps in the game.\nWright admits that this is one area he needs to work on.\n"I need to work on not so much physical, but just learning the game and being patient out there," Wright said. "Sometimes, as the game goes up and down I tend to get impatient as far as the basketball. So just be patient and let everything come to me"