The original Crusaders were on military campaigns sanctioned by the Catholic Church in the 11th century to help restore Christian access to holy places in and near Jerusalem. For Jeff Wu, he is on a basketball campaign for exposure as the Taiwanese native left for America two years ago and is now the starting point guard for the Modesto Christian Crusaders.
Wu started playing basketball in the fourth grade due to his older brother's influence. As he became more interested and more skilled at the game, he attended Chin-Hwa junior high school in the Xinyi district in Taipei City. The school is widely regarded as one of the better basketball programs in Taiwan at that level. Due to his play and his YouTube highlight videos, some American high school coaches became intrigued with his potential.
The 6-foot-2 and 170 pound point guard left Taiwan two years ago to attend Union High. Last summer, Wu made the move south to Modesto Christian as he could only stay one year as an exchange student at the public high school in Vancouver, Washington. Due to transfer rules in California, he sat out Modesto Christian's first 15 games before being thrown into the starting lineup against league opponent Orestimba in early January.
Modesto Christian will pass the head coaching reins to Richard Midgley from Gary Porter who had been the Crusader head coach since 1996 and has amassed over 500 wins during his tenure. Midgley, who has had the titles of the co-head coach and the ever more popular head coach in-waiting title for the past two years at Modesto Christian, was himself an international transfer high school student to the Crusaders in his junior year in high school before going to play for Cal during his collegiate years.
To adjust to a new culture and to a new geographical location is difficult, especially for a teenage student-athlete. Coach Midgley says, "The hardest factors for any foreign exchange student is being away from your family. Jeff has handled the transition well, he has an excellent host family which I think has helped a lot in that area. He is a really good kid and is well liked by his teammates and on campus."
Basketball has gained popularity in the past decade in Taiwan and in the greater Asia region due to such NBA stars as Yao Ming (Shanghai native) and Jeremy Lin (American born Palo Alto High graduate with Taiwanese parents). For a country of less than 25 million people and the geographic size roughly equivalent of Maryland and Delaware combined, Taiwan has its own professional basketball league that comprises of seven teams while the NBA has daily live and taped broadcasts of league games. Nike started running an annual camp since 2005. Last year's camp invited the best 48 players from age 14 to 18 in Taiwan as Wu was able to win the best shooting guard award as a 16 year old where the majority of camp participants were older. Before coming to America, Wu would watch NBA highlights and emulate the moves of certain players. And when he played pick up games in Taiwan, he would purposely seek out older competition to raise his level of play.
Wu feels that he has adjusted well to American high school basketball in the past two years. He says, "In Taiwan, our size are all pretty small and skinny but we play faster and quicker than here. However, the rules are different too. We only have 24 seconds for the shot clock and we cannot call timeout during anytime of the game. Everyone in America is taller and stronger, which forces me to be more physical."
Wu has a quick first step and is an aggressive dribbler. He models his game after Golden State Warrior Stephen Curry because of the similar ball handling, shooting, and size.
Having Wu for the entire upcoming season, Coach Midgley says, "In his senior year, Jeff will play as a combo guard. We will use him at times at the point as well as shooting guard. He will be one of our main perimeter scorers so we will run a lot of offense through him and run offense to get him good shots. Jeff's strengths are that he can shoot the ball really well, he has an explosive first step to beat defenders off the dribble and set up his pullups."
Wu has a solid 3.67 GPA as Math is his best academic subject. Eastern Washington and Santa Clara have expressed early interest in the point guard. Coach Midgley believes Wu is a promising college level prospect, "I think Jeff has excellent court awareness and a good feel for the game. He makes the right play most of the time and he shoots really well. He has to get a lot stronger and become more consistent. There were times this past season where he was unguardable in practice and there were times he struggled. I do not think we got to see the best of Jeff in our games this year. He played a couple of good games against El Cerrito and our first game with O'Dowd. Jeff is a very hard worker and he really wants to improve. The day after our loss to O'Dowd in the playoffs, he was in the weight room and has worked out everyday since our season ended."
For this upcoming summer, Wu is still looking for a club to get more exposure on the summer circuit. For Wu's senior year, Modesto Christian will feature some other highly regarded prospects like 2015 forwards Leandro Amador and Anthony Townes and 2016 guard Christian Ellis. With Wu leading these Crusaders, expect Modesto Christian to make another deep postseason run in Modesto, Calif.
