Lamar Wilkerson had quite the performance against Oregon on Monday night. The senior guard fell just short of tying his career high of 44 with 41 points, leading the Hoosiers to a 92-74 victory over the Ducks.
It was not all smooth-sailing for Wilkerson, however, as he struggled to get in rhythm to start the game. Wilkerson started the game with an ice-cold 0-5 from the field. That all changed with 7 minutes left to go in the first half, when Wilkerson drained his first three.
When asked what was going through his head during his cold streak, Wilkerson said, “Nothing for real. I mean, that’s what basketball is. You make shots, and you miss shots. Coach and 12 and the other guys, we always try to live on the next-play mentality. You miss one, next play. It was easy. Everybody kept telling me ‘Keep shooting,’ one fell, and then the rest happened.”
What happened after that was one of the most impressive scoring performances from a single player. Wilkerson made his next four shots and ended the first half with 16 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 assists.
When asked what led to him not getting rattled and continuing to fight for buckets, Wilkerson said, “Man, that just comes with old age. I been playing this game for a long time. Grateful to be able to play college for a minute, but when you got the guys around you like Nick, Tuck, Sam that can all space the floor and help you and you got Conor and stuff like that, it makes the game so up easier because everyone is on one accord.”
Wilkerson continued to heat up in the second half, scoring 25 points, going 8-10 from two and 4-6 from three. He ended the game with 41 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists. Wilkerson had a chance to break his career high of 44 points but ultimately came up just short, with 41, when he was subbed out with 2 minutes left to play. If you ask him, though, he was not concerned about breaking records; he was just going to keep playing his hardest until he was subbed out. “Honestly, I was just trying to come out there last two media [timeouts], and Coach wouldn’t let me come out, so just go out there and keep playing.” Wilkerson joked after the game.
As for Coach DeVries, when asked about Lamar’s performance, he said, “He’s pretty special. I told you that after our Wisconsin game, that he’s one of those guys that’s going to play this game for a long time. You can see as he’s gotten more comfortable with what we’re going and we’ve challenged him with some things defensively, playmaking, creating, he’s accepted those challenges and just took off with it. Now you’re seeing kind of the full package of what he’s able to do. He had a few extra ones out there I hadn’t seen before that were pretty cool, so that was as impressive of a second-half performance as I’ve seen.”
After being asked what awards Wilkerson should be nominated for, DeVries said, “All of them, yeah. Yeah, just look at the numbers. Look at what he’s doing. He’s a big focal point of defenses. What he’s able to do at both ends of the floor. He’s a complete player. That’s something that — you know how hard it is to get 41 points? And he’s done it twice this year already and putting up monster numbers with percentages to go with it. And he is an incredible teammate on top of it. So there is nothing I would not be in favor of him being the best player and voting for him being the best player in the league.”
Wilkerson’s ability to get hot at the right time was on full display on Monday, and with him and the rest of the Hoosiers starting to play their best basketball, they have a real chance to punch their ticket to the Big Dance.