NEW YORK – An hour and a half before tip off inside the world’s most famous arena, Anthony Walker has his eyes aimed toward the rafters of one of basketball’s most historic venues.
Banners hang from either side, forever identifying the successes of those who made it to the mountaintop in the toughest place to do so. Knicks, Rangers and St. John’s lasting monuments serve as unique reminders of his new home. Perhaps no building has a more iconic set of banners in the college game than Indiana.
History is everywhere he looks, even as he glares down at his iconic candy stripes, still fresh after just a sliver of the season’s games having come and gone, which are tucked into his socks.
In this, his first and only season with Indiana, he dons them as the Hoosiers’ elder statesman off the bench.
“I feel like the godfather, the grandfather, but I can still keep up with the guys,” Walker told TheHoosier.com. “They’re not faster than me. If you’re not faster than me, then I’m not worried about it.”
But in a crucial offseason where Mike Woodson would have to replenish a roster losing stability and production across all fronts, Walker’s addition may have flown under the radar. Incoming freshman phenoms and intriguing fellow portal arrivals made headlines and brought intrigue to their usage and potential immediate impact, but Walker may have been overlooked at first.
However, with Walker comes a blend of experience and playstyle that isn’t found anywhere else on the IU roster.
He’s been to an Elite Eight and a Final Four, taking from it an understanding of what’s required to reach those peaks all strive for. He’s the type of athletic four with ACC speed that’s absent from Assembly Hall’s friendly corridors in years past and contrasts the Big Ten’s general mold.
Beyond the need for scholarship players and minutes to fill, he’s a player of value in multiple aspects – brought in for a purpose.
Yet, in all his time in college basketball, experiences like running onto Branch McCracken court or taking in the engulfing atmosphere of Madison Square Garden are still new. It’s all a part of his journey – one that he himself admits is still a work in progress – to look back upon this last season as his best.
“It’s just basketball at the end of the day, so I'm still learning to this day and it’s becoming easier and easier as days go by,” Walker said.
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In September, at Indiana’s individual media day, Walker made mention that he wasn’t quite sure if he’d be ready for the first time he would walk into Assembly Hall with an Indiana jersey on.
“I didn’t really know the magnitude of how big the impact of the basketball team in specific had on the state until I came here myself,” Walker said. “Right now, I’m just anxious in a good way. I can’t wait to go out there.
“Whether I’m prepared or not, I’m going to be the best player and be the best person I can. If I’m not prepared for the first game, I’ll for sure be prepared for the second game, I’ll tell you that.”
Months later, reflecting back upon the experience, Walker dealt with many of the issues that opposing players do when visiting Assembly Hall. High noise levels made it difficult to hear defensive calls, and he described the overall experience as “jittery.”
The love for the program the Bloomington community has is a stark difference from the environment he was in at Miami. Finishing classes in Coral Gables meant that he didn’t have the summer to acclimate himself to his first time living in a college town or being the artificial professional team in the community.
The focus doesn’t lie on the Heat, Dolphins, Marlins or otherwise. In Bloomington, it’s the Hoosiers first. Everything else comes second.
“It drives us every day of practice, and of course they drive us in a game,” Walker said. “We get to see their faces and hear their cheers. We don’t want to let them down and we want to represent Indiana basketball the best way that we can.”
While his understanding of everything Hoosier basketball entails may have been slim at first, that’s no longer the case. There’s a different feeling to stepping on the court and representing the prominence and honor IU totes with its basketball program. Perhaps it’s something the Baltimore native couldn’t ever truly grasp until he became a part of it, but it’s been a full-scale immersion into why such significance comes with being a Hoosier.
There’s weight on the shoulders of everyone involved to be at their best, to carry the flag passed down from one generation to another and to reignite the torch champions of yesteryear once paraded. Efforts are always aimed at guiding Indiana basketball back to a place of respect and admiration, to being a threat in the conference and a contender in the national spotlight.
“Hell, I played here,” said Woodson this past March in Albany. “They should be high, and it’s okay.”
That isn’t a process that happens overnight, and neither is the journey of understanding it – especially from a once-outsider. This chase, however, is why Woodson chose to return to the job in the first place. In choosing Indiana, Walker decided he wanted to play a role as well.
“It’s a prestigious stage to play on, a very historic stage to play on,” Walker said. “That pressure, of course, is expected. That pressure is – we’re grateful to have it and we’re going to use it to our advantage. It’s a privilege, 100%.”
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Telling the story of Indiana’s win over Louisville without mention of Walker isn’t possible.
His fifth game as a Hoosier was by far his best, contributing 11 points, seven rebounds and a block off the bench when the Hoosiers desperately needed it. In his 20 minutes on the floor, his production was a part of Indiana’s second-unit answer to foul trouble and inconsistency along the IU front line.
“Ant came in and was aggressive, that’s what we need Ant to do,” said sixth-year senior guard Xavier Johnson, another former ACC transfer and one of Walker’s closest friends on the team. “That’s what coach wants Ant to do as well.”
Although delayed, it may have been the first true introduction to some Hoosier fans on why he was sought after to be in this position in the first place.
“We brought him on board because we thought he does a little bit of everything,” Woodson said earlier this year. “He’s been scoring and doing a lot of different things for us in practice, and I don’t want that to go the other way.
“I mean, I brought him here to play.”
Woodson wanted Indiana to be a faster team this year, and that’s the case in some instances. When in the half court, the Hoosier offense still seems aimed at playing through the bigs down low. It comes with equal parts success as it does frustrating, stagnant possessions.
But where the newly acquired length and athleticism that is the physical calling card of this team can flourish, Walker included, is in transition.
“Woody has been pressing that since he assembled this team, as let’s be the fastest team out there,” Walker said. “Let’s be the quickest team out there.”
A 6-foot-8, 215-pound forward that moves at the speed and fluidity he does with heaps of collegiate experience under his belt made the pairing all the more attractive. Factor in where the experience comes from – another league prioritized on playing quick and emphasizing the benefits of modern basketball – and it draws upon a dynamic not many other schools around the Big Ten are trying to embrace.
The brand of basketball that works in league play hasn’t translated to success on the national stage since 2000. While not every step is yet in place, players of Walker’s archetype help to break the mold that limits the ceiling teams within the conference have reached as of late.
“I’ve been hearing it’s more physical, and I’m looking forward to it,” Walker said. “It’s another challenge that I have to get over and another challenge that I’m willing to accept.
“My mindset is to bring that speed from the ACC to the Big Ten and see how the players in my position could keep up with me. Their plan is to be strong and try to overwhelm me with their strength. I’m going to try and overwhelm them with my speed.”
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Although just five games have passed, Walker’s role has been variable in terms of minutes played and the importance of such minutes. Some nights, he’s been the first player off the Indiana bench. In Monday’s win over Louisville, he was the last of the reserves to see the floor, first entering the ballgame at the under-12 media timeout.
On a larger scale, Walker is accustomed to an atypical share of minutes. His 130 career games only feature 19 starts, but 16 of them came in his sophomore season with the Hurricanes. In that season, he saw the floor an average of 26.4 minutes a night. Including the small sample this year has provided, no other season mark has eclipsed 14 minutes a night.
“I’ve always, and it sounds cliche, but I’ve always put the team first,” Walker said. “My role my sophomore year was not my role my junior year or my senior year. So being able to just accept my role in whatever it is, whether that’s playing five minutes or 25 minutes, it’s something that I learned to embrace and learned to be comfortable at the end of the day.
“At the end of the day, we all want to win. If me being out there 25 minutes isn’t going to help us win, then it’s not in my best interest to do so.”
That approach, especially for someone of his status and superiority in college basketball, comes without an egotistical mindset. It’s as impressive as it is rare. Not to mention, it’s revealing about why in what others may view as diminished roles his junior and senior year – on the heels of an emergence in his second year at Coral Gables – the Hurricanes made trips to the Elite Eight and Final Four in ensuing seasons.
“We play different teams every night, and it might not be my night every night,” Walker continued. “It might not be the guy in front of me, and that may push me to play more minutes. It not being my night may push me to play less minutes.
“Just how I’m playing, how we’re playing as a team and how the five that’s on the court are playing, if they’re playing well then ride that into the game or until they slow down.”
As a collective, Indiana likely can be best described as a work in progress. There’s elements IU plays into really well, but things IU is far from a finished product in. The usage of the second unit and the depth of the rotation going forward leans toward the latter as of now, with consistent contributors yet to reveal themselves to be that way.
But Walker says that comes with time, as does fluidity on offense and comfort on the floor together. To him, he reiterates it’s just basketball, and nothing about the sport he’s been playing for all his life is too hard for him to accept and adapt to – “As long as I apply myself, it’ll come,” he said.
“The more time I spend with him, the easier his terms become, the easier learning what he expects from us as players becomes,” Walker said. “It’s definitely new.”
And when February and March come around, Walker doesn’t think we’ll be talking about the same Indiana team we are right now.
“We’ll be way better,” Walker said. “We’ll be more confident on both ends. There’s a lot of new faces, so we’re still trying to figure a lot of things out, but as we figure those out, we’ll be sharp.”
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