Ivey doing it all for the top-seeded Longhorns

Junior guard from New York leading Texas on defensive end

4/2/03
By Patrick Daniel (Daily Texan Staff)

Some basketball players say that they will do whatever their coach wants in order to win games. Other players don't just say they will do the intangibles but actually put the effort down to get it done.

Junior guard Royal Ivey is a player who will do anything for his coach and his team to win. The junior was headed to Boston University before Rick Barnes and his coaching staff came calling.

When former assistant coach Rob Lanier came on to Barnes' coaching staff in 1999 from Rutgers, he told Barnes that New Yorkers James Thomas and Ivey were two players he should recruit.

"Rob told me that Roy's the kind of guy that when he's a junior or a senior people are going to ask where he came from," Barnes said. "Roy was a pretty easy guy to get because if he wasn't at Texas, he would be at Boston University."

In Ivey's freshman year, coach Rick Barnes did not have a true point guard on his roster, and Barnes put out a call for the young Ivey to quarterback the team even though he had never played point guard at any level of play.

Although Ivey averaged only 15.8 minutes per game that year, he started 26 of the team's 34 games. The team finished with a 25-9 record that year - which was a good showing for a truly inexperienced freshman running the show.

One year later, Barnes was able to corral a highly touted recruit named T.J. Ford , and Ivey was able to move back to his true position: shooting guard. That season, Ivey saw his on-court time increase to 28.3 minutes per game.

His points per game went up from just 2.8 a game to 10.9. Ivey scored in double digits once as a freshman, but the move to shooting guard enabled the Queens native to score in double figures 20 times as a sophomore.

Now in his junior season, Ivey has become known as quite the defensive specialist, and Barnes often calls on him to guard an opposing team's best player. Ivey has been matched up against Oklahoma's Hollis Price, Kansas' Kirk Hinrich and Missouri's Ricky Paulding.

Ivey also shut down Stanford's All-American Casey Jacobsen last season in the Longhorns contest against the Cardinals. Jacobsen, who now plays for the Phoenix Suns, scored only nine points as Ivey held the starter to just 3-of-17 shooting and only three rebounds.

"I let him know I'm going to be there every step of the way," Ivey said. "He kind of smirked at me like, 'You can't guard me.' Once that ball went up, I just carved right up in him, and he didn't show up."

Saturday night, in the NCAA Tournament's semi-final game, Ivey will most likely be asked to guard Syracuse's freshman phenom, Carmelo Anthony. Anthony is projected by many NBA scouts to be a top five pick in June's NBA draft, if he decides to leave early.

"He's going to be a tough matchup," Barnes said. "Roy will be the guy to start on him, but we are going to have other guys ready."

Anthony stands 6-feet-8-inches and his height could pose a problem for the shorter Ivey, but though Ivey is just 6-feet-3-inches tall, his arms are long, which has enabled him to close off passing lanes throughout his career.

The New Yorker said his wingspan has been measured at 6-feet-11-inches, and his teammates call him "Edward Scissorfingers." Ivey's sophomore defensive efforts led to him sharing most outstanding defensive player honors with former Texas guard Fredie Williams.

In the Texas Media Guide, Ivey states that his sports hero growing up was Dominique Wilkins, and in Friday's Sweet 16 game against the University of Connecticut, Ivey scored on a reverse layup that would have made "The Human Highlight Film" proud.

On the play, Ivey took a Connecticut defender baseline, and as he got near the basket he found himself in the air with no place to go as the Huskies' Emeka Okafor had stepped into his path. It looked as if Ivey only had two options: find a open teammate to pass to, or come down with the ball and be called for traveling. To the crowd's amazement, Ivey was able to flip the ball over his head and off the glass for two.

"I can do any layup in the book basically," Ivey said. "I like to go back door, so T.J. throws a lead pass and half the time the passes are going out of bounds, but I reach with my long arms and make the best of it. I didn't really have a shot because Okafor stepped out so I just flipped it up there, and it went in."

Ivey has played in every game but one for the Longhorns in his three-year tenure at the University, and he has worn a T-shirt under his jersey in all of those games but one. In this year's final game at the Erwin Center against Kansas State, Ivey played without his trademark T-shirt, shocking the Longhorn faithful.

Ivey scored just two points in that game on one-of-seven shooting but managed to grab seven rebounds. Prior to the Oklahoma game, Ivey was asked if the T-shirt was gone for good. The junior smiled and said it was just something different he did for senior night.

"I went back to the T-shirt because that's my style. I've been doing it since high school," Ivey said. "Everybody knows I wear the big T-shirt, and I'm content with that. I stand out because no one on my team does it."

T-shirt or no T-shirt, playing the point or shooting guard position, defense or offense, Royal Ivey has been asked to do it all for the Longhorns and has answered the challenge numerous times.

Ivey and his teammates hope to lace up their sneakers two more times this season, and their starting shooting guard will be a key component to winning Saturday against the Orangemen. If Ivey continues with his tenacious defense and the rest of the Texas squad play their roles, there could be a national championship banner hanging from the rafters of the Erwin Center next season. If that happens, Ivey's do-anything for the team demeanor will have truly paid off.

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