He scored 50 points on 30 shots, shot 11-of-21 from behind the arc, hit a buzzer beater on the road and earned Co-Big Ten Player of the Week. Junior guard James Blackmon Jr. is coming off a pretty good week.
Somehow his best moment of the two-game stretch during seven days occurred off of the court.
Moments after IU’s impressive 82-75 victory against Michigan State, Blackmon found himself in the press room to face the media. He had done this before and he will surely be called upon to answer questions again, but one response in particular stood out.
The question: “James, you had the game winner at Penn State. Your team loses OG. Do you need somebody to step up — high 33 points. Take us through your performance.”
The answer: “Just really all of us had a mindset of we gotta step up, because losing OG, he’s such a great player. He brings so much to our team. So I think it was just not one person. It was everybody on the team changing their mindset.”
Do you see what stands out?
Blackmon was asked about his play, a reasonable question considering the week he had just had, but No. 1 had better things to talk about.
“We,” “everybody,” “the team.” It seems like Blackmon is taking a step forward as a leader with sophomore forward OG Anunoby on the bench for the remainder of the season.
We all wrote about it.
“Who will be the leader with Yogi Ferrell and Troy Williams gone?” we collectively wondered. I know I was engrossed with the question, as were many other media members covering the team.
Twitter also had opinions, although most of them were more explicit.
A glaring hole in IU’s rough stretch that lasted from the Nebraska game through the loss at Maryland was a lack of control. There was no one to wake the team up during poor stretches or after a loss. Instead, a general malaise seemed to wrap around the squad. This bugaboo lingered over the Hoosiers’ heads until the waning moments of the Penn State game.
Blackmon hit a three, and since then, it feels like the tides are slowly changing.
More aggressive on both sides of the ball, Blackmon had his best stretch as a Hoosier last week, yet, instead of focusing on his play, he talked about the team stepping up together.
Although he may not be the most talented on the team, Blackmon is definitively the most important. He’s the one player who should be given the green light to shoot in perpetuity.
Averaging more than 30 minutes per game this season, Blackmon’s offensive box plus/minus — telling us how good the offense is when he’s on the floor — is first in the Big Ten. When he’s on the court, IU can score with anyone.
IU needs Blackmon to score productively and efficiently against Michigan and the rest of the Big Ten, but more importantly, IU needs him to lead like he’s been doing the past few games.
On and off the court, Blackmon has to be the guy rallying the freshmen who have become more pivotal as the season has progressed.
After his buzzer beat against Penn State, Blackmon put his finger to his mouth to hush the crowd into silence. He didn’t need to say a word. He’s letting his play and leadership speak for itself.
gigottfr@indiana.edu
@gott31
