BY PEDRO VELAZCO
INDIANAPOLIS — Derek Elston’s freshman season at Indiana ended with a trip through the handshake line in the first round of the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament.
Northwestern was basking in its 20th victory of the season and was headed to a date with Purdue tonight. Indiana was headed home to contemplate next season.
Next season is already on the Hoosiers’ minds. The freshman-and-sophomore-heavy squad was stung by another young club Thursday as Northwestern surged into the lead in the second half and took over, ousting IU 73-58.
Indiana’s players were left contemplating what they needed to do to get better for next season. Freshman Christian Watford and sophomore Verdell Jones III talked about getting physically stronger. Elston talked about getting better when opponents have the ball.
“My defense needs to come along, just guarding someone one-on-one,” said Elston, a former Tipton High School star.
With either response, the idea is to stop getting pushed around, and start being the aggressor. The idea comes straight from the top.
“Will is the biggest word in my mind right now,” IU coach Tom Crean said. “We’ve got to develop more of a defensive will and offensive will.
“We’ve got to continue to develop a toughness. We’ve made strides there, but we don’t have close to the physical and mental toughness we’ve got to have to compete at the highest level in this league.”
Based on IU’s 4-14 performance in the Big Ten, and a stretch of 11 straight losses, it’d be hard to argue the point. Yet the record aside, Crean saw plenty of growth. He thought the mistakes IU made Thursday — especially in turning the ball over — came from tentative play. The more Northwestern pounced on turnovers, the more the young Hoosiers lost confidence.
It’s hard to gauge positive progress with a loss, but even as IU’s season was closing with another frustrating display, Elston was moving in the opposite direction. He played his best at the end of the campaign. It’s surely something to build on.
“Individually, I felt like I was real passive in the beginning [of the season],” Elston said. “Towards the end, I kind of picked it up a little bit. I felt like the game was coming to me finally.”
Elston scored 10 points and grabbed a team-high nine rebounds — tying a season high — against Northwestern. He scored in double figures in four of his last five games and started the last two, both against Northwestern. Prior to the end of the season, Elston’s only double-figure scoring nights came in the first six games of the season, against Howard, South Carolina-Upstate, and Northwestern State.
It took all season, but Elston had finally found his comfort zone.
“In the beginning of the year, I wasn’t playing too bad,” Elston said. “Then towards the middle, the Big Ten [season] came. I kept beating myself up. It really wasn’t anything anybody was saying to me, it was kind of all me mentally.
“I think it was after the Ohio State loss,” Elston continued. He played a season-low six minutes in that game on Feb. 10. “I talked to my dad, and I got with [assistant] coach [Tim] Buckley, a couple of coaches, and they just sat me down. I told coach Buck, my main thing I was doing was I was trying to be like my dad. He told me I had to go out there and be my own player.”
With that weight lifted, things improved quickly.
“When I hit the court a couple practices [after that talk], I felt into the game, I felt involved with the guys,” he said. “Earlier in the Big Ten [season], in practices, I didn’t even feel involved. But I finally put my foot down and said I’ve got to start doing something. My minutes went up and I got some confidence back and I started to roll with it.”
Elston played 25 minutes Thursday, his third straight game of 24 or more minutes.
“I think it’s confidence for him,” Crean said of Elston. “It’s alertness, it’s awareness, it’s not playing with anxiety, it’s playing with that alertness. He made a ton of strides this year, a ton of strides, and I think you’ve seen that, but he also made some freshman mistakes. He’s no different than anybody else, but our young guys have made a ton of strides.”
