By this point in his life and basketball career, Ethan Wright is well acquainted with the routine.
On many occasions, Wright will be playing basketball somewhere, be it a pickup run on a local court or an organized game, and in the early stages of the contest, he’ll be relatively invisible, with teammates seldom giving him the ball or even looking his way. At 6-foot-3 and a sinewy 190 pounds, Wright acknowledges that his physical appearance may not exactly scream elite athlete to someone who doesn’t know better.
Invariably, at some point during the proceedings, he’ll do something to show that not only can he play competently, but he can do so quite well. He is, after all, a Division I player.
“After they get to see what I can do, they kind of change their tune a little bit,” Wright said with a smile Wednesday.
As he prepares for his lone season at Colorado, the graduate student guard isn’t someone who will provide the Buffs with a pleasant surprise that occasionally catches opponents off-guard. He’s someone they’ll rely on to try to get back to the NCAA Tournament.
A transfer from Princeton, Wright projects as a player who can help Colorado fill some of the gaps left by the early departures, transfers and graduations of older, talented players from a roster that will be relatively young in 2022-23. Along with the team success he hopes to create, Wright sees his season in Boulder as an opportunity.
“That's a big reason that I came here, to kind of prove myself,” Wright said. “I think that I performed really well at Princeton and that I was overlooked a little bit just because of the way that I look. I think that Coach Boyle will give me an opportunity to come out here and kind of prove to him and prove to the guys and the people around me that I can play at this level.”
As a senior last season at Princeton, Wright was an integral and valuable piece for a Tigers squad that went 23-6 and fell just two points shy of an NCAA Tournament berth. He averaged 14.7 points, a team-high 6.9 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game. Despite only playing eight more minutes a game than he did the previous season – 2019-20, as the Ivy League did not stage a season in 2020-21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic – Wright’s scoring average as a senior nearly doubled, helping him secure all-Ivy League second team honors.
That success at Princeton attracted attention from a number of suitors once he entered the transfer portal. Impressed by the program’s culture and coach Tad Boyle’s accomplishments over 12 seasons, Colorado caught his eye.
“It's just high standards, you know want I mean?” Wright said. “Coach Boyle always talks about bringing high character people into the program. We work really hard day in, day out. We practice early in the morning. It’s for guys who are committed to basketball. And these coaches have been here. Coach Boyle has been here for over 10 years and kind of been able to go from the ground up and set kind of what he wants for the program. They've been really successful. What I’ve heard about former players, what I know about the guys now, it's just a bunch of really hard workers who are committed to CU basketball.”
Now in Boulder, he and fellow Ivy League transfer Jalen Gabbidon are thrust into an unusual position. The two have been on campus for only a few months, but on a team on which sophomores account for a number of the leading returning scorers, Wright and Gabbidon will carry an expectation of veteran leadership.
Their new coach believes they have the necessary traits to fill those important roles.
“They come from great programs. Princeton is a winning program. Yale is a winning program. They've been really well-coached,” Boyle said Wednesday. “I want them to believe and use the experiences that they've had at those programs and relay that to our younger players because they have been through the battles and been through the wars. Yeah, different league, maybe a different level but there are some good players and good teams in the Ivy League.
“I want them to believe that the experiences that they bring to the table are valuable and worthy and they can't be afraid to open their miles, and right now they're kind of checking me out and they're not quite 100% sure what I expect yet but we'll get there and we got to get there quickly. Both are really smart players and really good kids. I don't know if the leadership is going to come so much from, hey, this is how we've done things in the past, as it is as like, this is what you need to do to be successful at this level. They got to believe that because I believe in them.”
Last season at Princeton, Wright shot 39.5% from 3-point range. Should he keep up that mark, he could help provide the Buffs not only with a capable outside shooter, but someone who can help them stretch the floor for a squad that doesn’t have proven big men beyond Tristan Da Silva.
Before he can truly show what his on-court impact will be for Colorado, Wright is already enjoying his new home, thousands of miles away from everything he had previously known.
“Just being out here with the mountains and stuff and getting to play in a gym like this with guys that I really, really enjoy being around, I'm just trying to enjoy every moment of it,” Wright said. “I had a great experience at Princeton. All this stuff is almost like a bonus for me. I get to enjoy it so much. I'm trying to take it one step at a time and enjoy every second.”
