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Harrison went 'Bigtime' to put Lopes in Big Dance
3/16/2023 7:34:00 AM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro
Lopes guard sought, earned NCAA tournament trip by stepping into leading role
DENVER – Just as sure as his voice and expression were last April when Ray Harrison woke up and told his father, "I know where I want to go," for his move to Grand Canyon, he delivered the same daily conviction to him last week in Las Vegas.
When Harrison's Grand Canyon team needed to win four games in five days to punch its ticket to Friday's NCAA tournament game here against Gonzaga, Harrison kept telling his dad, "I'm not leaving here without a championship."
Harrison saw to that last April by choosing to transfer to Grand Canyon so that he could contend for titles, and then he saw to that goal during last week's WAC Tournament.
The 6-foot-4 guard from Greenville, South Carolina, put the Lopes on his sturdy shoulders for much of a six-game winning streak. He became the first Division I player since Kemba Walker at the 2011 Big East Tournament to rack up at least 80 points, 20 assists and 20 rebounds in a conference tournament.
Harrison's signature game, so far, was a 31-point, eight-rebound, eight-assist work of art in the WAC Tournament championship victory against Southern Utah. Detroit's Antione Davis and Penn State's Jalen Pickett are the only other players to reach those statistical thresholds in a regulation game this season.
"It was like an out-of-body experience," Harrison said. "I literally felt like I was a puppet and God was just in control. Some of the stuff I was doing, I was like, 'Dang, I didn't know I could do that.' "
And as much as he is locking into the monumental task of toppling Gonzaga in a NCAA first-round game, Harrison is still in awe of obtaining the team title experience that he led by playing at his best to be named WAC Tournament Most Outstanding Performer.
"The next 72 hours were just all one big day," Harrison said. "Every day I wake up, it's like I just finished with 30 minutes on the court and just finished cutting down the net. Everything feels like it still just happened. It feels like a dream."
Given the nickname "Bigtime" at as a baby by his father, Harrison has embraced and embodied it. See his Twitter handle: @bigtimeray0.
But the path to that starring role did not come instantly, as he entered GCU respectful of playing his role alongside WAC Preseason Player of the Year Jovan Blacksher Jr. in the backcourt. That tentativeness cut Harrison from being a 17-point scorer for two losing Presbyterian seasons to averaging 8.3 points in his first six Lopes games in November.
"He wanted to follow and just be complimentary," said his father, also Ray. "It started out rough because he was trying to feel his way. He's used to acting, not reacting."
Harrison found his way and marveled at how the game came to him with more talent around him. But when Blacksher suffered a season-ending knee injury in early January, he was unsure again about how much to step up. His teammates weren't. They looked to him more.
Harrison scored 28 points to lead a Jan. 5 win at Sam Houston after Blacksher went down in the first half and learned two days later that he needed season-ending knee surgery. In the past 21 games since that day, Harrison has averaged 20.3 points with nine 25-point games, including four this month.
"There is a time for everything, and I'm still figuring out when to do everything," Harrison said. "Once I realized that I gained my teammates' trust, I got more comfortable w
ith everything, whether it's leadership or being aggressive.
"It was kind of overwhelming at first. I wasn't doubting myself, but for some reason, hearing everybody say, 'C'mon, Ray, you gotta step up,' felt like a weight on my shoulders. Once I realized that I didn't have to do it by myself and everybody stepped up tremendously, it made my job way easier."
The benefit from complimentary talent shows in Harrison's offensive efficiency. He also averaged more than 17 points per game in his first two seasons at Presbyterian, a Big South Conference program in his home state that went 19-35 in his two seasons and 5-27 this season without him. But his shooting went from 36.5% from the field last season to 44.3% this season and his 3-point shooting improved from 24.3% to 32.4%.
Harrison maintained the scoring impact while increasing his playmaking to a career-high 3.6 assists. In the WAC Tournament's final two games combined, he delivered 14 assists with only two turnovers in 65 minutes.
When the WAC Tournament championship's final buzzer sounded, Harrison turned to the Orleans Arena stands to hug his father first. His father, a retired plant engineer for Greenville County Schools, has made six trips to Phoenix this season around the daily FaceTime calls that occasionally turned emotional for going from raising him to a 2,000-mile separation.
Despite the distance, it was his father who told him, "I don't know about you, but I'm coming here," after their campus visit. He also had visited James Madison and was getting calls from Georgia and Georgia Tech.
"It's a special place," his father said of GCU. "When I came to Midnight Madness, I was sitting here in awe. I'm not one that's ever lost for words. But I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me. Are these guys that serious? It just blew me away. I knew then that he chose the place where he would be happy at.
"As a man, oh, man, he's grown by leaps and bounds because he now knows what he needs to do for himself."
His father told him, "You've made a believer out of me, son," after Harrison carried out what he had been insisting that the Lopes would do all week.
"Now I want to do it again," Harrison said. "Now that I've done it once, I feel like I have to do it every time that I'm in college."
When Harrison's Grand Canyon team needed to win four games in five days to punch its ticket to Friday's NCAA tournament game here against Gonzaga, Harrison kept telling his dad, "I'm not leaving here without a championship."Harrison saw to that last April by choosing to transfer to Grand Canyon so that he could contend for titles, and then he saw to that goal during last week's WAC Tournament.
The 6-foot-4 guard from Greenville, South Carolina, put the Lopes on his sturdy shoulders for much of a six-game winning streak. He became the first Division I player since Kemba Walker at the 2011 Big East Tournament to rack up at least 80 points, 20 assists and 20 rebounds in a conference tournament.
Harrison's signature game, so far, was a 31-point, eight-rebound, eight-assist work of art in the WAC Tournament championship victory against Southern Utah. Detroit's Antione Davis and Penn State's Jalen Pickett are the only other players to reach those statistical thresholds in a regulation game this season.
"It was like an out-of-body experience," Harrison said. "I literally felt like I was a puppet and God was just in control. Some of the stuff I was doing, I was like, 'Dang, I didn't know I could do that.' "
And as much as he is locking into the monumental task of toppling Gonzaga in a NCAA first-round game, Harrison is still in awe of obtaining the team title experience that he led by playing at his best to be named WAC Tournament Most Outstanding Performer."The next 72 hours were just all one big day," Harrison said. "Every day I wake up, it's like I just finished with 30 minutes on the court and just finished cutting down the net. Everything feels like it still just happened. It feels like a dream."
Given the nickname "Bigtime" at as a baby by his father, Harrison has embraced and embodied it. See his Twitter handle: @bigtimeray0.
But the path to that starring role did not come instantly, as he entered GCU respectful of playing his role alongside WAC Preseason Player of the Year Jovan Blacksher Jr. in the backcourt. That tentativeness cut Harrison from being a 17-point scorer for two losing Presbyterian seasons to averaging 8.3 points in his first six Lopes games in November.
"He wanted to follow and just be complimentary," said his father, also Ray. "It started out rough because he was trying to feel his way. He's used to acting, not reacting."Harrison found his way and marveled at how the game came to him with more talent around him. But when Blacksher suffered a season-ending knee injury in early January, he was unsure again about how much to step up. His teammates weren't. They looked to him more.
Harrison scored 28 points to lead a Jan. 5 win at Sam Houston after Blacksher went down in the first half and learned two days later that he needed season-ending knee surgery. In the past 21 games since that day, Harrison has averaged 20.3 points with nine 25-point games, including four this month.
"There is a time for everything, and I'm still figuring out when to do everything," Harrison said. "Once I realized that I gained my teammates' trust, I got more comfortable w
ith everything, whether it's leadership or being aggressive."It was kind of overwhelming at first. I wasn't doubting myself, but for some reason, hearing everybody say, 'C'mon, Ray, you gotta step up,' felt like a weight on my shoulders. Once I realized that I didn't have to do it by myself and everybody stepped up tremendously, it made my job way easier."
The benefit from complimentary talent shows in Harrison's offensive efficiency. He also averaged more than 17 points per game in his first two seasons at Presbyterian, a Big South Conference program in his home state that went 19-35 in his two seasons and 5-27 this season without him. But his shooting went from 36.5% from the field last season to 44.3% this season and his 3-point shooting improved from 24.3% to 32.4%.
Harrison maintained the scoring impact while increasing his playmaking to a career-high 3.6 assists. In the WAC Tournament's final two games combined, he delivered 14 assists with only two turnovers in 65 minutes.
When the WAC Tournament championship's final buzzer sounded, Harrison turned to the Orleans Arena stands to hug his father first. His father, a retired plant engineer for Greenville County Schools, has made six trips to Phoenix this season around the daily FaceTime calls that occasionally turned emotional for going from raising him to a 2,000-mile separation.
Despite the distance, it was his father who told him, "I don't know about you, but I'm coming here," after their campus visit. He also had visited James Madison and was getting calls from Georgia and Georgia Tech.
"It's a special place," his father said of GCU. "When I came to Midnight Madness, I was sitting here in awe. I'm not one that's ever lost for words. But I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me. Are these guys that serious? It just blew me away. I knew then that he chose the place where he would be happy at."As a man, oh, man, he's grown by leaps and bounds because he now knows what he needs to do for himself."
His father told him, "You've made a believer out of me, son," after Harrison carried out what he had been insisting that the Lopes would do all week.
"Now I want to do it again," Harrison said. "Now that I've done it once, I feel like I have to do it every time that I'm in college."
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Basketball
G
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