Senior Wesley Saunders just wants you to know he cares. Understand where he has come from and you will come to believe him. You’ll also see why he never shows it.

Take the NCAA tournament game on March 22 against Michigan State, for example. Watch the highlights and look at Saunders walking to his bench as his teammates jump around. Spartans coach Tom Izzo has just called a timeout after his team’s lead was cut to two, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that from Saunders’ face.

Saunders registers another steal a couple minutes later and puts in a dunk. The game is tied. The crowd goes crazy. Former co-captain Oliver McNally ’12 goes even crazier. Saunders gives a Spartan a tap on the butt and heads back on defense.

Next, watch the postgame press conference (Saunders had 22 points in the 80-73 third round loss) and try to figure out if Saunders’ portion is from the season-ending game or a mid-February shootaround.

When ESPN ranked Saunders the 46th best collegiate player in the country, it described him as “[o]ne of those guys who always looks sleepy at tipoff.”

But step into the locker room and see if you can find that stone-faced machine. Good luck. Off the court, Saunders transforms. He’s a character—a goofy one.

“Wes and his jokes,” junior co-captain Siyani Chambers said.

Usually, the split is flipped: athletes are reserved off the field and emotional on it. Not Saunders. He’s managed to become the class of the Ivy League on the court while still being a class clown everywhere else.

Saunders says his demeanor stems from a simple phrase his mother drilled into him growing up.

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Before we get to that, consider Saunders as a young player. He was a basketball purist long before he entered Harvard coach Tommy Amaker’s motion system.

“That’s not basketball,” he would yell at teammates messing around on the court. 

Still, coaches questioned his attitude. Saunders never appeared to be giving maximum effort, and his mother, Ramona Robinson, got used to talking to them about it.

“OK, but he’s got the highest score, the most assists, and the most rebounds,” she remembered telling many of them. “People perceive it as him not putting the effort out, but the results speak for themselves.”

Actually, let’s quickly take another step back, to before Saunders ever picked up a basketball. He was already demonstrating a level head back then.