North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Gonzalez Delivers For Wolfpack Hoops
12/4/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. Let’s amend the thought that NC State point guard Javi Gonzalez has always been a fighter.
At one time, the sophomore from Carolina, Puerto Rico, was indeed a boxer. But that was only until his mom, Ivette Lopez, found out that Javi and his stepfather, a Puerto Rican boxing champion, were sneaking behind her back for the youngster to participate in a youth boxing league.
“We did that for about three years,” Gonzalez says, smiling at the memory. “My mom didn’t want me to box. She said it was for dumb people, to get in a ring and get hit. But I liked it.
“The day she found out about it, it was over.”
Still, Gonzalez learned some valuable lessons that would help him in his career as a basketball player, especially playing at point guard.
He learned that the punches can come fast and furious, as they did when he was asked to step in for the injured Farnold Degand last December after Degand suffered a season-ending knee injury against Cincinnati. His first two ACC games were at North Carolina and at Clemson, two places that could intimidate any freshman.
But Gonzalez didn’t back down.
Between the ropes, he learned to fight through the pain of being punched. And, for much of last season, Gonzalez was hampered by a knee injury he suffered in November while walking down the stairs at the Weisiger-Brown Building on campus. By the time the season ended, his weakened left leg was two inches smaller in circumference than his right leg. It wasn’t until after the season ended that he was able to rest and rehabilitate it.
He learned to forget about mistakes, and be ready to deliver the next punch or absorb the next blow. That’s what carried him through last winter, when he was beaten in practice or in a game. And it’s one of the things that NC State coach Sidney Lowe liked most about the young point guard.
“[Boxing] helped me not get down on myself,” Gonzalez says. “In boxing, you can’t feel sorry for yourself if you mess up. You have to keep fighting through it. Even if you don’t do what you want, you have to keep fighting.”
Gonzalez wasn’t expecting to be thrown into the starting lineup again at the start of the season. But Degand has been out since the first half of the season-opening win over New Orleans because of tendinitis in his knee, meaning Gonzalez and freshman Julius Mays have had to handle the point-guard duties in the Wolfpack’s revamped offense.
For the record, Gonzalez loves pushing the ball up and down the court. Like Degand, he enjoys starting a fast break and getting the ball to teammates Ben McCauley, Courtney Fells, Brandon Costner or Tracy Smith for an easy layup.
In the Wolfpack’s last game, a victory over UNC Greensboro, Gonzalez helped his team score 20 points in transition and played one of the best games of his career. He had nine points, seven assists, no turnovers, six rebounds and a career-high four steals.
For the season, Gonzalez has been productive and protective. He is second in the ACC with a 4:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. He’s eighth in the league with 16 assists on the season. As a team, the Wolfpack is second in both total assists and in assist-to-turnover ratio.
Against UNCG, the Wolfpack had a season-high 22 assists on its 34 field goals. Against Winthrop, the Pack had just six turnovers.
Gonzalez knows he and his teammates will have a big challenge on Saturday, when the Wolfpack (4-0) travels to Charlotte to take on No. 24 Davidson in a noon game at Time Warner Cable Arena, in front of a largely partisan crowd. Gonzalez is prepared for the challenge.
He’s also hoping that Degand, who resumed practicing with the Wolfpack earlier this week, will be ready to play again. Not only will the two alternate at the point, Gonzalez believes they may share some time in the backcourt together, something Lowe talked about in the preseason to give his offense two options to generate transition baskets.
“Either of us could run the point, which will make it even easier to push the ball,” Gonzalez says. “On defense, we will be quick on the perimeter. Having him back is going to help a lot.”
Gonzalez finally feels comfortable on the basketball court, where he first picked up a ball at the age of 4. His father, Eddie Gonzalez, is the general manager of a championship Puerto Rican professional team, so the game is in his blood even if he doesn’t see his dad on a daily basis.
Gonzalez recognized at an early age he would need to leave the island if he wanted to become a college player. He left home for Elizabeth, N.J., for his sophomore and junior seasons at St. Patrick’s High School, where he was teammates with Villanova’s Corey Fisher and former Louisville player Derek Calendar.
“Basketball-wise, I wanted to stay,” Gonzalez says. “I just didn’t like the environment. I wasn’t used to the cold. I didn’t go out, I didn’t have any fun. It wasn’t like Puerto Rico. I wasn’t used to it.”
He spent his senior season living with his grandmother in Miami and playing at Krop High School, where he was named Florida’s 6A Player of the Year after averaging 20.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists in his only season at the school.
Because he moved around, he was a bit of an unknown quantity on the recruiting trail. Wolfpack assistant coach Monte Towe got a tip from a friend in Florida, and Gonzalez was a late addition to Lowe’s first full recruiting class.
Lowe has always liked Gonzalez’s competitive spirit and his court savvy. The coach had hoped to ease him into college play last year, playing behind Degand, since Gonzalez missed most of the preseason because of thumb surgery. Instead, Gonzalez started 15 of the 21 games Degand was out, even though he played most of that time on a bad knee.
But, in the long run, that experience has helped. He was better prepared and better conditioned coming into this season.
“Sometimes last year, things were coming at me pretty fast,” Gonzalez says. “But now I know what to expect. I was put in so many situations last year as a freshman, by now I know what to expect and I think it is showing in these first couple of games.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
