In Tuesday night’s exhibition game against the University of New Orleans, Carter Wurts III, business freshman, faced some strict officiating. He fouled out late in the game after 15 minutes of playing time, in which he made two field goals and grabbed four rebounds against the Privateers.
Head basketball coach and athletic director Michael Giorlando said that tough referees were part of the learning experience in Wurts’ first collegiate game.
“He had to get used to on-the-road officiating,” Giorlando said, “and he didn’t back down.”
The scholar-athlete recipient is better known as “Bear.” When he was born, Wurts’ mother called him the teddy bear that she had always wanted. The name stuck even though at 6-foot-5-inches, Wurts is no longer looked at as a teddy bear.
The referees on Tuesday night certainly didn’t mistake Wurts for soft or cuddly. When the officials called excessive personal fouls, he said he had to make changes like where he positioned his hands.
“You figure out what fouls the ref is calling and play to that,” Wurts said. “You have to learn the right attitude to have when they make calls against you.”
Giorlando said that the two UNO players that Wurts guarded were 6-foot-10-inches tall. The Wolfpack does not have many big men, so Wurts can expect to guard players much taller than him throughout the season.
“When I guard big players, their advantage is height, so I just try to find my own,” Wurts said.
The scholar-athlete was glad that the ‘Pack played an exhibition game so the team could see “where they are and where they need to be” without the score counting.
Wurts said he saw a lot of room for improvement in his own play.
Also, earlier this week Wurts dealt with early registration. He said he has not chosen his business focus yet but is taking plenty of business classes to narrow down his options. This semester he is taking 15 hours and has scheduled 15 hours for next semester as well. Once the season starts and the players add games and road trips to their already busy practice schedule, frequent excused absences and less time to study increase the stress on their academics.
Wurts said he especially feels the pressure as one of the six trial scholar-athlete recipients.
“It is stressful when people are debating over you,” he said. “They are gauging whether to keep the scholarships based on your performance.”
A full ride was the factor that made it possible for Wurts to attend Loyola. His club coach had contacted former head basketball coach and athletic director Jerry Hernandez, who eventually offered Wurts the scholarship. The money and recognition appealed to Wurts, as well as Loyola’s College of Business and the opportunity to explore a city so far from home.
The southern California native from Huntingdon Beach said that he misses surfing and being next to the beach, but that the culture in New Orleans has given him a broader sense of the world.
He also said the university is the right size for a young basketball player to grow: big enough to feel like a college, but small enough not to feel insignificant.
The men’s team is trying to improve its record, and Wurts realizes that a lot of the hope rests with the scholar-athletes. He feels like the scholarships are a good investment but knows that a winning program takes hard work.
“Just because the team has scholarships doesn’t mean that we are going to start winning all of a sudden,” Wurts said. “We are still just freshmen playing college ball for the first time.”
He added: “The scholarships are going to pay off.”
Wurts said he plans to use what he learned from the exhibition game in the season opener tomorrow against Pensacola Christian at 7:30 p.m. in the Den.
Gigi Alford can be reached at [email protected].
