Jeremy Lin Plays Against the 'Wall'

Former Harvard co-captain Jeremy Lin captivated the basketball world with his performance on Thursday against John Wall, the No. 1 overall pick in last June's NBA draft.

Lin, a member of the Dallas Mavericks summer league team, held his own against Wall in the Mavericks’ contest against the Washington Wizards.

Wall may have outscored Lin, whose team ended up with the loss, but Lin went off in the fourth quarter, dropping 11 points off a combination of acrobatic layups, one-handed flushes, mid-range jump shots, and deep balls. He also out-jumped Wall—who boasts a 43-inch vertical leap—after the two got tied up for a jump ball.

While Lin’s performance may have surprised many observers, they may be more surprised to learn that Lin was not the first Harvard player to square off against the 2009-10 CBS Sports First Team All-American.

As a player at Hopewell High School in Huntersville, N.C., rising Harvard sophomore Brandyn Curry was ranked the No. 2 point guard in his class in the Tar Heel state. The man sitting at No. 1—John Wall.

But for nearly three seasons, the two never faced off on the hardwood. That changed during the pair’s junior season when they both attended Dave Telep’s Carolina Challenge, a camp for the top 80 high school players in North Carolina. Curry wasn’t aware he was going to play against Wall until he was approached by Telep before the competition.

“[Telep] told me before the [camp] he had a special matchup for me,” Curry said.

Soon enough, Curry was matched up against one of the top five recruits from the class of 2009.

“I was so shocked at how cool he was on the court,” Curry said. “Most players with that talent are usually pretty cocky.”

But when the ball was in play, Curry started to realize other things about Wall.

“I’ve never played someone so fast before,” Curry said. “I already knew he was the real deal.”

Two years later, the two have followed drastically different paths. While Wall left Kentucky early for the NBA and has already signed a shoe deal with Reebok, Curry is trying to help the Crimson win its first Ivy League title.

As a freshman, Curry averaged 7.3 points and 3.2 assists per game—good for fourth in the Ivy League—and led the Crimson in three-point percentage, despite playing with a torn left patellar tendon and coming off the bench for more than half the season.