Season in Review: Wayne Ellington

With the MOP, Wayne Ellington has ultimately lifted any past tournament failures off his back (especially the Georgetown game). Ellington really improved his stock quite a bit. He showed various improvements in his game, and the ones that stuck out to me were the rebounding and ability to put the ball on the floor. The 2nd half of the year was something special from Ellington. He was simply on fire. I can’t remember a player who went on a streak like that. You could tell some of the shots he put up were just heat checks, especially when he was draining 7 3’s. I think the Heel’s record when Ellington hit 50% of his shots was 50-0. That is impressive!

Things I didn’t like:
1. Turnovers. Sometimes Wayne Ellington would have some bad turnover games with no assists. That’s usually not good, but it really never hurt us too much, but I just didn’t like it.

Things I liked:
1. Improvement and contributions. I know I mentioned the improvements already, but Ellington also contributed in various ways. I thought his defense had greatly improved (at least he was able to stay with his man this year), but you could tell he was focused on defense by the way he carried himself, often times slapping his hands together. You could also see the fire in his eyes and often during team huddles he was the one yelling at people. The contributions were there (rebounds, defense, assists), even when the shots weren’t.

2. That shot. It’s such a pretty shot, especially when it goes in. I love the pose after a made basket too.

Ellington made the right decision to return to school. He became a much better overall player, rather than just a shooter. Primarily that was his job, but he did the other things as well. I know I mentioned that I thought he would come back, but he is not. It would have been nice to see the transition of Wayne the shooter to Wayne the scorer, but what can you do. Also, when you think of Ellington remember .4 against Clemson. And the picture above is my all-time favorite of Ellington. Not known for being a big dunker, but this one was huge against Arizona his freshman year.