Following N.C. State’s 92-72 loss at Duke on Jan. 31, freshman point guard Javier Gonzalez stood outside of his team’s locker room, waiting to talk with reporters.
He looked defeated. He rarely lifted his head. He spoke softly.
The freshman just had his first taste of Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Wolfpack lost, but Gonzalez battled against Blue Devils point guard Greg Paulus and appeared unfazed by his fiery opponent.
During that game, and since that game, Gonzalez has played with more confidence. A lot of that is because of the approach he took before the Duke game, he believes.
“I’m just playing with more confidence. I’m just coming out there and playing my game and running the offense,” he said before the Duke game. “When I see things, I just do it. At first, I wasn’t scared, but I just didn’t want to turn over the ball.”
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski even noticed the play of the guard following Duke’s win.
“Gonzalez did a good job for them — especially in the first half,” Krzyzewski said. “Not turning the ball over, getting them into their sets.”
Fitting into the team and learning his role hasn’t been easy, he said. The move from Miami to Raleigh has been a life-changing experience. Raleigh has been much different than what he was used to in Miami.
“Miami is a more outgoing city — it’s a bigger city. Different kind of people too. There is more variety. There are Spanish people, black people, white people. Here most of the people are white or black,” he said. “It’s quiet — it’s not as loud as Miami, but I like it.”
In Miami, Gonzalez went out to clubs, parties and concerts fairly often. That’s how life operated a year ago. But now, he said, he spends weekends studying, sleeping or focusing on basketball. He said he had scholarship offers from Miami, Florida Atlantic and Florida International, but he believed the lifestyle in Raleigh would be best for him.
“That’s one of the reasons I picked N.C. State — it would keep me focused on school and on the basketball court,” he said.
But since arriving at State, Gonzalez believes he has been put in one of the most pressure-filled situations in the entire country.
“Being a freshman and trying to run a team that they picked us to be third in the ACC before the season started, there’s a lot of pressure on me, Marques and Farnold,” he said.
Early in the season, he knew his role would be to back up starting point guard Farnold Degand. When Degand went down with a season-ending injury on December 23, Gonzalez quickly realized he was going to have to step his “game up and play a lot of minutes.”
A lot of the pressure came from the media expectations early on. Even though Gonzalez said he doesn’t read newspapers or stories about the team, he frequently heard about the expectations.
When two of the coaches are NCAA champions and are both former point guards from State, a lot of eyes are on the point guard. Gonzalez said even though the point guard position “is the most important position on the floor,” the coaches focus on the position because the group is also the youngest on the team.
“Having all of our coaches being point guards and having won national championships and stuff like that, there’s a lot of pressure on us,” Gonzalez said. “But we just got to do our best.”
But the freshman knew pressure would be there when he arrived on campus.
At times he thinks it’s a little too much, but he knows what people expect — and since ACC play has begun, Gonzalez has started three games, led the team in 27 assists and is tied for most steals on the team with 10. Gonzalez also only has 18 of the team’s 142 turnovers and is third on the in rebounds with 27 — tied with forward Ben McCauley and ahead of forward Brandon Costner.
“I knew there was going to be pressure, but I think sometimes it steps up to another level,” Gonzalez said. “But I knew we were going to have pressure and a lot of people were going to expect a lot from us.”
Javier GonzalezStat: Non-conference games, ACC gamesGames played: 14, 9Starts: 4, 3Minutes per game: 13.9, 22.83-pointers: 4-for-23, 9-for-27Free throws: 9-for-14, 8-for-11Points: 27, 47Rebounds: 21, 27Turnovers: 18, 18Assists: 12, 27Source: N.C. State Athletics
