INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — There was a time when a lot of the Indiana recruiting talk swirled around Khristian Lander. Former coach Archie Miller had recruited three straight Indiana Mr. Basketball winners — Romeo Langford, Trayce Jackson-Davis and Anthony Leal — but it was Lander who was the most intriguing.
The smooth left-handed point guard from Evansville, Ind., was considered one of the best players in the country. He had five stars next to his name, and there were some who considered him a potential one-and-done type of talent.
He was so good that Miller convinced him to skip his senior year at Reitz High School and come to Indiana a year early.
It turned out to be an epic, monumental mistake.
Lander was in over his head from the first day, and struggled to fight with Big Ten point guards who were four or five years older. Miller was fighting for his job — he lost — and didn’t do much to make Lander better.
Mike Woodson was hired, but preferred experienced point guards. Xavier Johnson and Rob Phinisee got all the minutes, and Lander only played in 13 games, scoring just 38 points all season.
He transferred to Western Kentucky and didn’t do a lot as a junior, an awkward fit for Rick Stansbury, who was replaced by Steve Lutz, a former Purdue assistant, and now Western Kentucky is in the NCAA Tournament.
Western Kentucky won the Conference USA Tournament last week, and Lander scored in double figures in all three wins. They are a No. 15 seed here in Indianapolis, and takes on Marquette at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, this first of four games.
Lander is happy now.
And that’s a good thing.
“I finally have a coaching staff that believes in me, and let’s me hoop like I know I can hoop” Lander said Thursday in the Western Kentucky locker room at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. “Everything that I’ve been through so far, all the adversity I went through, has made me a stronger at the end of the day. I feel like it was good that I went through it. Things aren’t always the way it seems.”
His two years at Indiana were difficult because he expected so much more. He thought he was a missing piece and could be the floor leader the Hoosiers needed. He was also teamed with Trey Galloway and Anthony Leal, former AAU teammates. But the fit was never right. Miller, fighting for his job, wasn’t about to hand him the keys to the offense. Woodson, who prefers experience, started Johnson — a transfer from Pittsburgh — over Lander.
So he left. And it was hard. Playing at Indiana was a dream, but it turned out to be a nightmare instead.
“I leaned on my immediate family — my mom and dad and my sister — and my girlfriend,” Lander said. “I look back sometimes and maybe wish I would have done some things differently, but it’s not something I really worry about a whole lot. I just worry about the present and see what I can do in the future.
“I still talk to my guys at IU. They’ve been texting me about playing here. I think a couple of them are trying to come to the game. It means a whole lot to be playing here. I’ll have a lot of people coming in. I thought it was great when I saw we were coming here.”
Lander said he’s really enjoying his time at Western Kentucky, and has a tight group of teammates. Lutz has been a breath of fresh air this year, and Lander has thrives. He averages about 23 minutes a game, scoring 9.1 points per game. The Hilltoppers are 22-11 and playing in the school’s first NCAA Tournament since 2013.
The roster is full of transfers, and most every current Hilltopper played somewhere else first. But they’ve found a way to come together. They beat New Mexico State, Middle Tennessee and UTEP to with the Conference USA title.
“We had to make something happen coming off that four-game losing streak that we had to end the regular season,” Lander said. “We just had to buckle down and come together to figure out a way to win.
“We can relate to each other a little bit more, having been through what we all have, so that brought us closer together and leads us to being closer together on the floor, too. We have a lot of different personalities on the team. Our stories are all different, but in some way similar. It’s definitely helps us for sure.”
One of those transfers is Brandon Newman, who used to play at Purdue. They’ve known each other since high school, and are having fun between together.
“We’re good. We were rivals at our past schools, but we’re good,” Lander said with a smile.. “We played against each other in high school, and at IU too when he was at Purdue. I say he’s a dog. He’s a super hard worker in the gym, and he’s a really good teammate. If we’re bored, we’re in the gym.”
Lander is more mature now, too, and that helps. He just continues to get better, and become a more well-rounded player. He gives Lutz a lot of credit for that,.
“I feel like I’ve always been a talented player, but I needed to learn the little details on the offensive and defensive end,” Lander said. “I just feel like he didn’t sugar coat anything. He kept it real with me and told me what I needed to work on. That’s what I did. And once he saw what I could do, he let me hoop like I could hoop.”
Lutz recruited Lander when he was at Purdue and has known the family for years. He’s glad they finally got together.
Yeah, I was lucky because I had known Khristian a little bit since he was young, because when I was at Purdue we recruited him early on in his career,” Lutz said. “But my message to all those guys is always the same, that I’m just a normal person who happens to be a basketball coach. I’m going to treat you the right way as long as you do things the right way.
“I knew that Khristian was a good kid from a good family, and obviously he had had some bumps along the road, and I just told him that I believe in you, I know that you’re talented, but if you’ll believe in us, we’ll believe in you, and I think that it could work out well. Thus far he’s done a good job.”
MEN’S NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKET: Here is the full NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket, with gametimes, TV, locations and point spreads. CLICK HEREWOMEN’S NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKET: Here is the full NCAA women’s basketball tournament bracket, with gametimes, TV, locations and point spreads. CLICK HERE
Source : Sports Illustrated