CORAL GABLES, Fla. —There is always some wait. The days-long wait between games, when fans itch to see him play again. The minutes-long wait for him to come off the bench, when the action slows and starts to beg for his speed and energy. The moments-long wait after he catches the ball on the wing, when he peers into the defense and it seems like there is not a single thing 5-foot-7 Chris Lykes cannot do on a basketball court.
“Where is he?” asked University of Miami junior Valeria Velasco at the mention of Lykes’s name. She whipped her head around to see an empty court at the center of the dense Watsco Center in Coral Gables, Fla.
Lykes, a Mitchellville, Md., native and freshman guard for the Hurricanes, was nowhere to be found. A late January matchup with Louisville was still an hour and a half away, which meant the students had to wait just a bit longer to see Lykes, who is finishing his first college season and is already one of the ACC’s most exciting, and likable, players.
That starts with his size, the first thing fans and opponents notice when he walks into a gym, but is buoyed by his downhill attacks of the rim, deep three-pointers and pestering defense. In December, Miami Coach Jim Larranaga said, “If he were 6-5 or 6-6, he’d be Michael Jordan.” After Lykes scored 18 against Florida State on Jan. 7, Seminoles Coach Leonard Hamilton called Lykes a “flawless dribbler.” Later that month, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski called him “one of the better on-ball defenders” in the ACC.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
