The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1547338
48 ■ THE WOLFPACKER PACK PAST BY TIM PEELER N C State fans who want to know how first-year coach Justin Gainey and his team might do in his inaugural season have one set of data points to study before the Wolfpack's season opener in November — his freshman season as an NC State player. The native of High Point committed to play for Wolfpack coach Les Robinson in the fall of 1995, just before his senior sea- son at Greensboro Day School. The young guard, who played at the shooting position as a junior before switching to the point as a senior, made his early decision to play for the Pack while also being recruited by Duke, Richmond and Old Dominion. His world changed before he ever set foot on campus, when Robinson stepped down from his dream job and Herb Sendek took over the program. In today's world, Gainey might have transferred a time or two, looking for a program that would better fit his skills as a shooter and ball handler. His pros- pects weren't really that great in Send- ek's system, though the new coach had a short roster and few options for whom to put on the floor to play his pressing man-to-man defense. Gainey, however, was a proven winner. The 6-foot guard had developed his skills playing pickup games against older opponents at High Point's Washington Terrace Park. He began at High Point's Andrews High School before transfer- ring to private powerhouse Greensboro Day School, to improve his academics as much as his basketball prospects. He was the floor leader of a team that posted a 57-9 record in two seasons, and as a senior, he was named the Greensboro News & Record's Guilford County Player of the Year, after averaging 19.8 points, 4.9 steals and 4.2 assists per game. Though he was considered one of the top five senior players in the state, Gainey was often called a mid-major project whom critics believed would not be successful in the ACC, which at the time was considered the highest level of college basketball. In the first few weeks of his freshman season, Gainey seemed to gain a foothold, scoring 13 points in an exhibition game against the Melbourne Tigers and hitting three-pointers in his first two regular- season games. Playing behind upperclass- men C.C. Harrison and Ishua Benjamin, Gainey averaged about 20 minutes per game, even against No. 2 Wake Forest and top-ranked Kansas, in the early season. Then came the afternoon of Jan. 4, 1997, the Wolfpack's first ACC road trip down to the Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center. Sendek and his team were feeling confident after a 7-2 start, hav- ing established themselves as the na- tion's top defensive team, posting wins like 57-28 over Winthrop and 83-23 over Arkansas-Pine Bluff. They had even taken an early lead against the Seminoles, when Sendek in- serted his freshman point guard into the lineup to get him some ACC playing time. In three short minutes, Gainey made 4 turnovers and missed a shot, while Florida State eventually built a 25-point lead en route to a 71-51 victory. "I literally could not get him off the court fast enough," Sendek said in re- membering Gainey's career. While that outing neither eroded the confidence of Sendek in Gainey nor Gainey in himself, it was not a smooth transition into facing the best competi- tion in the nation. The Pack lost its first eight ACC contests. In his first 59 minutes of action in league play, Gainey scored just 2 points and made 8 turnovers. Some began to wonder if maybe the doubters might be right. "There are going to be detours and curves in the road," Sendek said during his team's January slide. "Early in the ACC, Justin has been thrown into a dif- ferent kind of fire. "Improvement is not going to be like a rocket ship to the moon." However, just three weeks after the disastrous appearance in Tallahassee, Sendek inserted Gainey into the start- ing lineup because of an injury to forward Damon Thornton. For the rest of the year, A Familiar Starting Point Justin Gainey played all 160 minutes of NC State's four games in the 1997 ACC Tournament, helping the eighth-seeded Wolfpack reach the championship game as a freshman. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS