Racers’ Ja Morant: “I Don’t Pay Too Much Attention to the Hype”

Ja Morant is the guy who continually amazes the whole nation. His performances are not getting enough credit as they should. That is somewhat because of all the hype surrounding Zion Williamson and Duke, and also because his Murray State is not so appealing programme from a not so respectable conference.

But those kinds of prejudices simply have to be set aside after his last night’s performance against the Marquette Golden Eagles.

The No.12 Racers smashed the No.5 Golden Eagles 83-64 and proved that they have the quality to beat much bigger names than the ones from their Ohio Valley Conference.

The central figure of this one-sided domination was Morant who posted a triple-double, the first one at the NCAA tournament in the last six years.

Morant scored 17 points, had 16 assists and 11 rebounds. The most recent triple-double before him was Draymond Green’s in 2012.

The fans at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut started chanting “triple-double” after he grabbed his 9th rebound, signalizing to the player that he is at the verge of history.

At one moment he and Racers’ center KJ Williams went for the rebound at the same time, and Morant practically took the ball out of Williams’ hands.

“I called it and he still tried to get the rebound,” Morant was laughing after the match. “I just snatched it and said, ‘It’s my ball.'”

He later explained that he and his big teammate have a deal, that Williams goes after every board no matter who is around him. For this particular situation, he publicly apologized to KJ.

“Sorry, I had to take that one from him,” he told the reporters, with the smile across the face.

And to be completely honest, this guy deserves to be happy. He’s had one hell of a season in which he set standards for all the guards who play college basketball.

We will mention just a few of them here. The NCAA Divison one no.1 in assists this season, the first player in the history of Division one who recorded a double-double average with 20+ points and 10+ assists per game. And not only that, he became the first player in the last 20 years to have a match with 40 points, 10 assists and 5 steals.

And after the latest game, he became one of the few players who recorded a TD during the NCAA tournament. Some of the names before him who did the same thing were Shaquille O’Neal, Andre Miller, Dwyane Wade. Also, there are ones before the assists, blocks, and steals became part of the official tournament box scores in the mid-1980s, Oscar Robertson, Artis Gilmore, Magic Johnson.

But despite all the historic landmarks, the 19-year old doesn’t want to talk about himself or speak about the numbers too much. The media attention and all the headlines are also not his stuff. The only thing which excites this young fella, is for his team to win.

“I really don’t pay too much attention to the hype,” Morant said. “I just tried to come out and give it all I could tonight, and just try to do whatever I could to get my team a win.”

His only wish now is that the Racers go deep into the postseason. They already had a nice season, clinching the conference and the conference tournament titles, and also winning an NCAA tournament game, the first one after 2012.

Murray State never reached the third round of the March Madness, and it seems that it is the primary mission of this generation.

The only thing which separated the Racers and the third round is Florida State.

The game against the Seminoles is set for tomorrow at 6:10 PM EST.