Is Chit-Chat Wright the X-factor in the Hawkeyes tournament run?

In the era of the transfer portal, almost every addition to your roster comes with a bit of risk. Coaching staffs have to move quickly, judging whether a player will fit their system and culture. Commonly referred to as speed dating, sometimes offseason portal additions work out and sometimes they don’t.

This past offseason, Iowa scoured the portal with the intention of getting a point guard to replace Lucy Olsen as she headed off to the WNBA. A few early targets came and went, raising some anxiety within the fanbase. Finally, Chit-Chat Wright, fresh off her freshman season at Georgia Tech, more or less fell into the Hawkeyes lap thanks to a chain reaction of events.

Down in Atlanta, longtime head coach Nell Fortner retired, leaving assistant LaSondra Barrett without a position and Wright looking for a new home. Meanwhile in Iowa City, Raina Harmon departed for the FGCU job, opening a spot on Iowa’s staff. On April 18, Iowa hired Barrett. Five days later, Wright committed on her official visit. Point guard acquired.

“With LaSondra, we knew we had somebody that was going to be a great addition to our staff, as far as her X’s and O’s, but also the value she brings to our program, as far as how we want to operate,” said assistant coach Abby Stamp. “So then, knowing that Chit-Chat knows about her and that (LaSondra) was really bought into our program was a huge thing. You want a point guard to come in that believes in your system and how you want to operate, so having that confidence was good.”

A four-star recruit in the ’24 class, Chit-Chat carved out a respectable role as a freshman at Georgia Tech. She appeared in 33 games, with 12 starts, averaging 7.2 points and 2.6 assists per game. Despite being somewhat buried on the roster in terms of usage rate, the coaching staff identified Wright as someone that could be a breakout candidate if given more minutes and more opportunity.

Although the coaching staff felt confident, you never know how a transfer is going to work out until the games begin. It only took a couple before it was abundantly clear that the Hawkeyes had a good player at the point position. In the fourth game of the season, Wright put up 19 points and knocked down three triples in a 74-41 win over Northern Iowa. A career-high in scoring at that time, she set a new high with 21 points against Iowa State less than a month later. It was her first of four 20+ point games this season.

“The earliest (I knew she was the right fit) was the UNI game,” said Stamp. “She really kind of had to make some plays, and that’s the one thing she can do, probably better than anyone else on our team. As a playmaker, with the ball in her hands, she has the ability, when things are breaking down, to get us a bucket, which is nice.”

“It didn’t take long to figure how it was going to go, how the team was going to excel,” said Wright. “I would say, after those first couple of games, I was able to visualize where we could end up.”

Fast forward a few months later. That UNI game is well in the past and the Hawkeyes have a 26-6 overall record, with hopes of deep run in March. Would they be here if it wasn’t for Chit-Chat averaging 33.6 minutes per game? Would they be here if one of those other transfer targets was the one running the show or if a former Hawkeye hadn’t transferred out? If we’re being truthful, the answer is no.

“It’s been (what I envisioned) and more,” Wright told HawkeyeReport. “When I came here, I knew we were going to be pretty good, but in the summer, we just built on that. I was like, wait, we could be really good, this is a special team. Day in, day out, we’ve been practicing, going hard and just preparing for this moment.”

One of the reasons why the Hawkeyes are where they are, is because of the play of Wright. In 29 starts, missing a couple due to injury, Chit-Chat is averaging 12.3 points and 4.6 assists, while maintaining a 2.33 assist-to-turnover ratio. The biggest improvement with her game has been her three-point shooting. A 32.3% shooter as a freshman, Wright has knocked down a team-high 61 triples and is third in the country with a 45.2% three-point percentage.

Not one to boast about her skills, Chit-Chat almost shrugged off the notion that she’s one of the most efficient shooters in the country before doubling back to say she is grateful to hear her name in that conversation.

“It’s just getting those reps in the gym, but I try not to think about it too much. Being third three-point shooter in the country or whatever,” Wright said. “But I’m really grateful for that too, not just to throw it away like that. I just try not to think about it and keep continuing to work because I know there’s always somebody out there that’s trying to get better.”

The Hawkeyes roster has a number of players that could fill the “X-factor” mold in the NCAA Tournament. Chit-Chat’s three-point shooting and ability to score could prove to be incredibly important during this NCAA Tournament run. Since Taylor McCabe went down with a season-ending ACL injury in late January, the Hawkeyes are averaging just 5.9 made threes per game. Although Taylor Stremlow has shot it well for the majority of the season, Chit-Chat has accounted for 36.6% of the team’s made threes over the last 12 games, while the rest of the team is shooting just 32.6% from behind the arc. In a lot of ways, the Hawkeyes three-point shooting ceiling will be determined by whether or not Chit-Chat can knock down 3-5 triples in any given tournament game.

If the Hawkeyes have a game where they only make 3-5 total threes not all is lost, they are still capable of winning, however, they become very vulnerable if the opponent has a strong shooting night. At this stage of the season an off shooting night no longer means, oh bummer, we lost to X team, but we’ll bounce back next game. It means the season is over. If Iowa wants to make a run to the Elite Eight or even the Final Four, they’ll need the best that they’ve seen from Chit-Chat.

“She’s been doing a great job for us on the defensive end, but she will have to score more,” said Stamp. “As we get deeper and deeper, we’re going to have bigs that are going to be more physical, have the ability to defend our bigs a little more one-one-one, which puts one-one-one on our guards, and a little bit less likely to have easy, open looks. That’s where Chit-Chat is going to have to be able to create off ball screens and in transition a little bit more for us.”

When Chit-Chat arrived on campus, Jan Jensen called her a capital letters, pass first point guard. She said they needed to get her comfortable with being more aggressive and hunting her shot on more occasions. Throughout the season, the coaching staff and her teammates have implored her to take more shots, as has the well-known clothing line Ray Gun with their “Shoot that Chit” shirts. That support, from all angles has done its part in getting Chit-Chat to be more aggressive as a shooter.

“It’s been great (to have that support),” said Wright. “Also, believing in yourself and having that confidence, but when other people believe in you, it makes you want to shoot those shots with confidence, not just shoot them because you’re open, but shoot them because your team believes in you.”

“Players, coaches, fans, everybody is kind of on her, Ray Gun, the t-shirts are even telling her to shoot the ball more,” said Abby Stamp. “We’ll just keep getting there. She’s just a sophomore. She started for Georgia Tech late last year, but to come in and be a starting point guard on a team that stayed in the top 25 the entire year, ended seventh in the country, that’s a pretty big responsibility. We’ve just got to keep getting her to grow into that as far as her leadership goes and then wanting the ball a little bit more in those moments and wanting to step up and make the big plays.”

This season, Chit-Chat has put up 15+ points in nine games, while she has tallied 5+ assists in 13 games and made 3+ threes in 13 games. If the Hawkeyes are going to advance past someone like Georgia in the second round or take down someone like TCU to advance to the Elite Eight, Chit-Chat might have to do two of those three or all three of those things in a game to help Iowa get the job done. If the situation calls for it, is the sophomore ready to take over and lead the Hawkeyes to a win?

“Yeah, I think she’s ready to step up and score. I also think she’s equally as ready to step up and find what we need her to find,” said Stamp. “Whether that is scoring, which it definitely could be, but it may be that we need her to look at this specific thing to get the ball here or be able to rotate it over there, whatever it is, I think she is more than willing to do what we ask of her.”

“The feel in this arena is just a little bit different when it comes to NCAA Tournament time. There’s just a different vibe because there’s just so much on the line and so for this young team to be able to handle that, recognize it, handle it and withstand anything, that’s where the biggest challenge is for this group.”