The dog days of summer have earned that nickname. The combination of conditioning workouts, practices, strength training and sweltering temperatures — all endured with months to go before the start of the men’s college basketball season — can quickly turn into a monotonous grind.
Entering his second year in college basketball, Andrija Jelavic is experiencing it for the first time. This time last year, Jelavic was still in his home country of Croatia, finishing up school and finalizing his enrollment at the University of Kentucky.
He wasn’t able to start practicing until late August. Now at Ohio State after one year with the Wildcats, Jelavic is getting an understanding of what he missed a year ago and how that impacted him.
“This is my first summer of college basketball,” Jelavic said after a July 9 practice at the Schottenstein Center. “When I was late at Kentucky, I didn’t feel like I was missing a lot, but being here for a month already, I feel like it helps you a lot to be here. Now I understand that I missed a lot by not being there in the summer at Kentucky.”
When the 2025-26 season got underway, Jelavic was a rotation player for the first two months, briefly fell out of the playing rotation and then was inserted into the starting lineup for the final 20 games of the season.
Jelavic said the season was “pretty challenging” and described his situation as “a little bit weird,” noting that he primarily played at power forward while averaging 5.5 points and 4.0 rebounds in 15.6 minutes per game.
With the opportunity to play center in addition to power forward for the Buckeyes, the 6-foot-11, 240-pound Jelavic said he’s enjoying the feeling of getting settled in at OSU while using last season as motivation to improve.
“It drives me a lot,” he said. “I think I’m a much, much better player than I showed that I am last year at Kentucky. There was half stuff on me, half stuff on the circumstances that were there, but it drives me a lot to prove myself this year at Ohio State.”
The time lost obviously did not help Jelavic. Ohio State saw something similar when Mathieu Grujicic, a prolific scorer at the German youth national team levels, was able to watch the Buckeyes practice, but not participate, until the fall. Grujicic never fully settled in and played in only six games for the Buckeyes before transferring to Radford.
Jelavic, who is a junior, said he has enjoyed being a change-of-pace center compared to Ivan Njegovan (7-2, 260) and Josh Ojianwuna (6-10, 270), as well as a player who can step out to power forward to give the Buckeyes a more physically imposing lineup. A proficient shooter in Croatia, Jelavic shot 27.6% (21 for 76) from 3 at Kentucky.
“He’s unique because he can play both [the center and power forward] positions,” coach Jake Diebler said. “He can play with another big. He can be the quote-unquote only big. I liked his skill set. He’s got a ton of experience playing high-level international ball.”
Now, as he goes through the summer with his Ohio State teammates, Jelavic is hoping to show all of that when he puts on a uniform this winter.
“[Fans] will see that I really give my all on the court,” he said. “I’ll probably show them some flashy plays here and there. The thing I learned from last year is you can be the most talented guy in the world, but if you are not a good athlete and you’re not physical enough, then you can’t play.”
Ohio State men’s basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social or on Twitter at @AdamJardy.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: What Ohio State’s Andrija Jelavic learned after a frustrating year at Kentucky
Reporting by Adam Jardy, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Adam Jardy, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
