John Wall returned to North Carolina to play in the NC Pro Am semifinals last night, and let's just say he was trying a lot harder than usual. The semifinal game got really competitive, with Wall jawing with Dominique Sutton of North Carolina Central early in this video. Wall ended up scoring 36 and looking jaw-dropping at times, but his team lost, 68-65.
A couple notable items from the video and this report from the News-Observer:
- My god, Wall is incredibly athletic. That block on the fast break after losing the ball - holy crap.
- Team Jamison (Wall's opponent) was leading most of the game, and it was on Wall to bring them back. He almost did, cutting Team Jamison's lead to three with an and-1 with 38 seconds left. But he committed a foul, his sixth, on the next possession, and that sealed it.
- Wall's team isn't very good. Essentially, it was a two-man club of Wall and Jerry Stackhouse, who acted as the player-coach. Jerry Stackhouse as a player coach is pretty funny to me.
- UPDATE: Just checked John's Twitter, and apparently, he was booed? That's cold. He wasn't too happy about it either.
- Still can't get over how much jawing was going on between Wall and Sutton. Just in case you didn't think these games were serious. Sheesh.
(Hat tip to DMVLeGenD for putting a FanShot up about this first).