Save one dreadful night, Tu Holloway looks a lot like the sort of player that college basketball fans love to support.
The Xavier guard was the Atlantic 10 player of the year and a third-team All-American as a junior. He entered his name into the draft last spring, but withdrew to return for his senior season. He’s on track to graduate.
In interviews, the Xavier guard comes across as introspective and team-oriented. Generously listed at 6-feet, Holloway is the fearless and clutch leader of the only mid-major team in the NCAA tournament’s South region, which opens Friday night at the Georgia Dome with the No. 10-seed Musketeers facing No. 3-seed Baylor.
“If the game goes in the last five minutes, there’s no better guard in the country than Tu Holloway,” said Georgia Tech coach Brian Gregory, who coached against Holloway for three years as the coach at Dayton.
However, if most fans know anything about Holloway, it’s his involvement in a Dec. 10 brawl in Xavier’s game against archrival Cincinnati. Holloway’s trash talk toward the Cincinnati bench at the end of the blowout win for the Musketeers ignited a melee that resulted in a total of eight players from both teams getting suspended, including a one-game suspension for Holloway.
Following the game, Holloway didn’t back down from his actions, calling it “what you’re going to see from Xavier and Cincinnati.”
“We’ve got a whole bunch of gangsters in the locker room,” he said. “Not thugs, but tough guys on the court. And we went out there and zipped them up at the end of the game.”
At a news conference the following day, Holloway was remorseful both for his role in the brawl and his comments. He made clear that he didn’t intend to communicate that his teammates were gang members, but instead tough-minded athletes. Regardless, damage was done. Holloway was pilloried for his part in the fight.
It likely doesn’t rank high on the objective list for Xavier, but its semifinal against Baylor provides a national stage to adjust the perception of its team and star player.
“People that know me know I would not make this up,” Xavier associate athletic director and spokesman Tom Eiser said. “I’ve been doing this way too long. I would definitely go to the wall for [Holloway]. He’s a genuinely nice kid.”
Holloway’s basketball play needs little clarification. Holloway averages 17.4 points per game and has been on a tear. In his past six games, he has scored 21.5 points per game on 49.4 percent shooting. His play in the Atlantic 10 tournament helped Xavier secure one of the last at-large bids in the NCAA tournament, and he followed that with 25 points in the second-round upset of No. 7-seed Notre Dame.
Holloway is a streaky shooter, but compensates with strength and an ability to get to the rim for baskets or fouls.
“He isn’t afraid to get hit, and he’ll jump into you and use his off arm, and he’s got great body control, so he can do a lot of things to get fouls,” Gregory said. “That’s the other reason why he’s so good in those [last] five minutes.”
Holloway averages 7.4 free throws per game. In a win over Southern Illinois in December, Holloway scored three baskets, but was 14-for-15 from the free-throw line for 21 points.
“He’s always going to get enough because he gets to the free-throw line,” Gregory said.
NBA scouting director Ryan Blake will be among those evaluating Holloway, among others, at the dome Friday.
“I think he’s a floor leader,” said Blake, a Woodstock resident. “He can really play well within himself. What I’ve liked about what he’s doing here is he’s sort of picked up on the defensive end a little bit.”
Blake said Holloway will have to play himself into the first round of the NBA draft. Holloway has accepted an invitation to the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, a draft showcase event in April. He can do himself a favor with a strong performance against Baylor and potentially Kentucky or Indiana on Sunday.
“I really don’t look at it too much as a matchup, Tu Holloway vs. anyone at Baylor,” Holloway told reporters Tuesday in Cincinnati. “It’s more doing what we do here at Xavier in order to win games. I feel like naturally people will see what I’m doing as long as we continue to win.”
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