Despite all the hype surrounding Andrew Wiggins, one man that is keeping him focused (other than his father) is his Coach Bill Self.
From ESPN :
"He’s been marginal," Kansas coach Bill Self said last week. "Compared to what people are saying, I think he’ll have some ups and downs."
That’s not meant to be a jab at Wiggins. Self is quick to add that he has never seen anyone with as much promise and explosiveness as Wiggins. "We’ve never had anybody who can do what he can do," he said.
But Self is also about reality, not hyperbole, and reality is on the court at Allen Fieldhouse, not on Twitter.
And the reality is Wiggins might be a basketball prodigy whose legend already has grown to almost urban myth, and whose most recent game was against high school kids.
Wiggins’ jump-out-of-the-gym talent is eye-popping, but to succeed as a collegiate player he has to learn to be more than just the occasional exclamation point.
That’s what Self is waiting on.
"You’d watch him play 10 minutes in a game and leave out of there going, 'Wow,' " Self said. "He makes plays that truly leave you in awe. But he doesn’t know yet how to play hard consistently. He can definitely do that. He just has to learn how."
From here we can see that coaches like Bill Self know how to work with prized recruits. The whole country will be watching Wiggins this season and the critics will want to see if he lives up to the hype. It’s good to see that Self knows what Wiggins needs to do to live up to the expectations of greatness. All it takes is consistency.
