Chris Gancio: This Forward is Back

Everyone said that they were in big trouble.

Only a day before its trip to Cornell and Columbia last weekend, lightning struck the Harvard men's basketball team. Its freshman star, Kyle Snowden, sustained an ankle sprain in practice and would be forced to miss both games.

The Crimson had no chance for any wins, the cynics said. Without the team' leading rebounder, the games would look like first-graders playing the Globetrotters.

But the cynics didn't count on Chris Grancio.

The freshman forward's season had previously been an injury-filled nightmare. A hip pointer incurred over the summer kept him off the court for months. As soon as he recovered from that, he began to experience ankle problems.

Before last weekend, Grancio had never played more than three minutes in one game.

"It got to a point that it was tough to go down to the gym and put on a T-shirt and watch everyone play," Grancio said.

But the ankle healed, and Grancio caught up on all the practice time that he had missed.

"He's had a difficult year," Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan said. "For any freshman to be out that long him back a while."

Slowly, Grancio came back. First he did half practices. Then, At about the start of the Ivy League schedule, he completed full practices. Soon, he was ready to play.

And then Snowden got injured.

"It's unfortunate for Kyle," Grancio said. "We've been friends all year. Hopefully when Kyle gets back we can play some together.

"I told him that that's the way I've been felling all year," Grancio said jokingly.

"Right now we're just trying to get to the point where we're both playing at the same time," Snowden said.

So with Snowden on crutches, the Crimson packed up and headed off to Cornell.

"I was a little bit [nervous]," Grancio said. "but I knew that I was going to play.

Again, the cynics laughed. Grancio hasn't played long enough to fill out a time card, the said. How can he help the team?

But he did play. And he did help.

Harvard lost the Cornell game, 83-64, but it was closer than the score would indicate. The game was filled with big scoring streaks on both ends, and thanks to Grancio's play, the Crimson opened a lead early in the second half, only to see it slip away.

Them, the Crimson ventured down to Columbia, and with another strong performance by Grancio, Harvard eked out a 76-75 victory.

And with the win, all those that didn't give the Crimson a chance were proven wrong by a young forward named Chris Grancio.

No member of the team, however will ever say that he is surprised by Grancio.

"I think that he [Grancio] stepped up big," Harvard Captain Tarik Campbell said. "He's been injured for a while, and it was just a matter of time [until he did this]."

"I think he's fantastic," Snowden said. "We really needed him to come up big."

But now, Snowden is healing. He still carries crutches with him, but only as a perfunctory symbol. While using them, Snowden looks more like a four-legged person than an injured one.

And it couldn't come at a better time for the Crimson. This weekend, Harvard plays host to both Pennsylvania and Princeton, easily the top teams in the Ivy League.

And the cynics rise up again. They say that the Crimson are destined to go 0-2 on the weekend. They say that Harvard has no chance against the league powers.

These naysayers have never bothered people like Chris Grancio before. "We want to get to .500 [winning percentage for the season]," Grancio said. "We've got a legitimate shot of doing that--it would mean going 5-1. I think that we can play tough and get a game from them [Penn and Princeton]."

"Every time you step on the court you have a chance," Campbell said.

If Snowden's ankle is healed enough, he will see some playing time. then, perhaps, Snowden and Grancio will be side-by-side in the Crimson frontcourt, for essentially the first time all season.

And Penn and Princeton had better be ready.