BLOOMINGTON — Sam Alexis squared his feet toward the basket with four seconds left in an otherwise meaningless possession, approaching the end of a well-earned and long-decided win Monday night.
The Hoosiers were putting the finishing touches on one of their best halves of offense this season. This particular trip down the floor, however, ended broken and disjointed, to the point Indiana’s center found himself with no choice but to line up an end-of-clock 3-pointer.
Then, just as he began his shooting motion, Alexis heard a whistle to his right. Intuitively, he knew what that meant: Lamar Wilkerson was coming.
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Monday night, and neither for the first nor the last time this season, Wilkerson was the superlative player on the floor for an Indiana team now clearly attuned to the premise that Wilkerson’s best is the Hoosiers’ as well.
His 41 points, in a 92-74 win over Oregon, made him just the fourth Hoosier ever to post multiple 40-point games in the same season. Wilkerson now keeps company with players like Don Schlundt, Jimmy Rayl and George McGinnis, such is the history behind his scoring output.
Monday’s performance underscored two truths central to Wilkerson’s one season in Bloomington. First, that while excellence elsewhere will probably prevent him from winning conference player of the year, Wilkerson remains as important to his team as any player in the Big Ten.
And second, that we will wind up measuring the success of Darian DeVries’ first season at Indiana (17-8, 8-6 Big Ten) foremost through the answer to the question of just how far Wilkerson can carry this team.
“He’s pretty special,” IU coach Darian DeVries said. “He’s one of those guys that’s going to play this game for a long time.”
The dollars and cents of Wilkerson’s stat line Monday night are by now familiar to his fanbase.
He scored those 41 points on just 20 field goal attempts, making six 3s and nine free throws. Wilkerson peppered in five rebounds and three assists as well.
In fact, Wilkerson missed his first five shots Monday, struggling briefly to find his reliable rhythm. Which meant he finished 13 of 15 from the field, setting a blistering pace Dana Altman’s fast-fading Ducks (8-16, 1-12) could not match.
Indiana scored better than 1.8 points per possession in the second half alone, 56 of its points coming after the intermission. The Hoosiers ran DeVries’ old boss and his team back to the bus for a long flight home.
Other Hoosiers played important roles Monday.
Tucker DeVries finished with 15 points, seven assists and three rebounds, pulling the strings of the game at both ends of the floor.
“My job is to go out there every night and do whatever we can to try and win as many games as possible and enjoy these games while they last,” Tucker DeVries said. “I’ve tried to impact the game in other ways. I know shooting has been a little bit of a struggle of late, so just kind of trying to find that balance of making plays for other guys, you know, doing other things other than shooting.
“At the same time, still trying to believe in myself and take the (open) ones and be aggressive.”
Alexis — by now established clearly as IU’s No. 1 big — stacked 16 points and five rebounds on top of a similarly strong performance in Saturday’s win over Wisconsin. Alexis’ continued emergence within Darian DeVries’ offense will play a pivotal role in how extended (or brief) the Hoosiers’ march through March turns out to be.
“He’s given us these last two games some low presence that maybe we haven’t utilized enough, to be honest with you,” Darian DeVries said. “That’s something that we’re going to continue to try to utilize.”
There was no question, though, of Monday’s leading man. Wilkerson outshone everyone else on the floor by an order of magnitude, and not for the first time.
He is now averaging 21.2 points per game this season, second in the Big Ten behind only Northwestern’s Nick Martinelli. That puts him on pace for Indiana’s highest single-season scoring average since Brian Evans, in 1996.
Wilkerson now owns two of the four 40-point games turned in by a Hoosier since 1990. The other two belong to Alan Henderson in 1994 and Trayce Jackson-Davis in 2021. More good company to keep.
Which is why Wilkerson’s name is floating into rarified air that, in this century, includes only an exclusive clutch of Indiana guards. One including Eric Gordon, Yogi Ferrell and Victor Oladipo, among others.
Those players enjoyed achievements beyond simply their averages, a reminder that Wilkerson’s single-season resume still needs finishing touches to be remembered the same way.
Asked to make a case Monday for postseason awards Wilkerson might win, and which he should be considered for, Darian DeVries replied simply: “All of them.”
To watch him play basketball is to understand why that endorsement and those comparisons are entirely justified.
There is an ease to his offensive game. A rhythm so instinctive it becomes subconscious. Wilkerson can find his offense anywhere — at the rim, in the midrange, at the free-throw line or from 25 feet away.
Once he does, he becomes essentially unguardable. Impossible to speed up, and therefore impossible to slow down, his points produced in a flow state so smooth and effortless Wilkerson sometimes moves as though there is no opponent on the floor at all.
He certainly scores like that, as he did on that possession he took over from Alexis. Touching the ball only as the shot clock ticked under three seconds, Wilkerson still managed to back his defender inside the arc, put him on his hip then fade into a second defender for a long, arcing baseline jumper that barely touched the rim (if at all) on its way down.
It’s becoming a familiar sight. Across his last six games, Wilkerson has scored 169 points, or 28.2 per. Indiana’s turnaround — the Hoosiers have won five of those six — has been grounded in the staggering excellence of their Sam Houston State transfer.
“Look at what he’s doing,” Darian DeVries said. “He’s a complete player. You know how hard it is to get 41 points? And he’s done it twice this year already, putting up monster numbers with percentages to go with it.
“And he’s an incredible teammate on top of it. There is nothing I would not be in favor of him (winning).”
At this point, the only shame of Wilkerson’s Indiana is its shelf life. He will exhaust all eligibility whenever this season ends. A fan base so thirsty for this kind of player, for this kind of offense, for this kind of basketball, will find it difficult to part with him after just one season.
Maybe that’s why Darian DeVries kept him on the floor just a touch longer than you’d expect Monday night.
Wilkerson actually asked his bench if he should exit one or two minutes earlier than he did. Still DeVries kept the Arkansas native on the court.
“I was just trying to come out there last two media (timeouts), and coach wouldn’t let me come out,” Wilkerson said. “It was pretty fun, man.”
When he finally subbed Wilkerson, DeVries handed his star super senior center stage, for a much-deserved standing ovation.
They may not have long with him. Indiana fans still recognize fully how special Lamar Wilkerson is, and how much he makes possible through his remarkable talent.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU basketball fans don’t get Lamar Wilkerson for long. It’s a shame, but worth cherishing
Reporting by Zach Osterman, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
