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Cormac Ryan is a better shooter than he looks.
The transfer from Notre Dame and Stanford is not a physically impressive specimen, one of the few major college basketball players who is 6-foot-5 and weighs less than 200 pounds. But he has always battled uphill.
He played at a private prep school in Massachusetts where he was dominant enough to earn a scholarship to prestigious Stanford and started 17 of 24 games as a freshman in 2018-19, averaging nearly nine points. One of his 10 double-figure jobs was at the Smith Center, scoring 14 points in a 90-72 loss to the seventh-ranked Tar Heels of Roy Williams.
Ryan drained four 3-pointers in that game and went on to reach a season-high six against USC later in the schedule. He made multiple treys 12 times and led the Cardinal with 48 for the season under former Williams assistant Jerod Haase.
From a devout New York City Catholic family, Ryan transferred to Notre Dame, where he sat out the next season as a redshirt. In 2020-21, he returned to Tobacco Road and scored a then-career high 28 points at Duke that included 10 of 16 from the floor and four 3-pointers. He made a long ball in 21 of 25 games with more than one three times. The skinny dude had a season-high nine rebounds against N.C. State.
As a junior, he averaged 30 minutes per game and shot a career-best 40.4 percent from behind the arc. He had a career-high 29 points in an NCAA first-round win over Alabama, shooting a career-best 10 of 13 from the floor that included SEVEN of nine 3 pointers on his way to a 41 percent season.
His senior year, Ryan averaged 12-plus points (19 in the last three games and 14 in the last 13) and drilled a career-best 63 from downtown. He made six 3-pointers at Michigan State and five at N.C. State, hardly easy places to play. Thanks to a sixth COVID year granted by the NCAA, he transferred to Carolina and is getting to play at his first “basketball school” with a national TV schedule.
“He’s a basketball player who also has to shoot the ball,” Hubert Davis said after Ryan’s break-out game (4 for 7 on threes) against Kentucky. “So many people are asking questions about his shooting percentages. I’m the head coach and I’m not worried about it at all. As a player, the percentages always end up being right where you are as a shooter.
“And he’s been a consistent shooter throughout his entire career. And so I knew he would play big tonight [in Atlanta] and I know that he’ll play big on both ends of the floor for the remainder of the season.”
Featured image via Dakota Moyer
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