Coming home?
Merrillville’s Wilkins and Drake teammates hope for at-large bid to NCAA Tournament
Drake junior DJ Wilkins let his mind wander this week.
The 6-2 guard and 2016 Merrillville graduate has entertained what it would feel like if the Bulldogs are one of the teams picked for the NCAA Tournament on Selection Sunday.
“It’d be a dream come true,” he said. “Not a lot of people get this opportunity, especially at mid-majors. Every year you’d watch it and wonder if it could be you.”
Wilkins and his teammates will find out Sunday whether an at-large bid is theirs.
Drake (25-4) had a chance to earn an automatic bid when it played in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championship game on March 7, but the Bulldogs lost 75-65 to Loyola.
Wilkins said that loss hasn’t diminished what his team accomplished this season.
“We’ve overcome so much adversity,” Wilkins said. “We lost our two top players, and not a lot of teams could deal with that. The vibe in the locker room never changed. We never doubted ourselves.”
Drake won its first 18 games and cracked the top-25 rankings for the first time since 2008, led by a contingent of players from Northwest Indiana.
Michigan City product ShanQuan Hemphill leads the Bulldogs with 14.1 points per game. Bishop Noll graduate Roman Penn is third on the team at 11.2 points, Wilkins is fourth at 10.6 points and Griffith product Tremell Murphy is fifth at 10.2 points. Merrillville graduate Jonah Jackson is averaging 3.1 points.
Making the tournament not only would fulfill childhood dreams for that group, but also would let the players share the experience with family and friends who have been along for the ride. The entire tournament will be played in and around Indianapolis.
“Now that we’re so close to it being a reality, it could be emotional, but it’d also be very exciting,” Wilkins said. “We’d be able to have people come watch us in the tournament. I know they’re just as happy as we are that they’d be able to come experience it too.”
Just don’t expect Wilkins or any of his teammates to be obsessing over bracket projections this weekend.
“We know what’s going on because we’re all on the internet,” he said. “But it’s not something that’s been occupying a lot of our time.”
Another shot: Northwestern sophomore Lucas Davison, a 2018 Chesterton graduate, grew up in a wrestling-focused household. So it won’t be his first trip to the NCAA Championships, which will be held in St. Louis next weekend.
But it will be his first time there as a competitor, an occasion that will carry extra significance for Davison after the 2020 tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Missing out on that opportunity last year makes me cherish this one a little bit more,” he said. “And it makes me realize just how special it is. I’m going to try to make the most of it.”
Davis is ranked No. 14 by InterMat at 197 pounds and placed fifth at the Big Ten Tournament last weekend to earn an invite to the national meet.
“If you watch high-level wrestling, for the most part, those guys are dominating the pace of a match,” he said. “They’re forcing opponents to react to them. So that’s something I’ve tried to bring out of myself, and it’s done by forcing yourself to attack, even when you don’t feel like it.”
Tidbits: Indiana’s Donnell Washington, a Portage graduate, will wrestle at 174 pounds in the national tournament. … Two Michigan State wrestlers with local ties also will be there: Drew Hughes, a Lowell graduate who will compete at 174, and Jake Tucker, a Lowell native and Mount Carmel graduate who will compete at 165 … Valparaiso opens its football season on Saturday at Butler.