Northwestern University Athletics
Only the Beginning for Vukusic
3/3/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 3, 2006
by Kyle Adams
Northwestern Media Services
The din of explosions filled the air, his neighbors ran to safety and young Vedran Vukusic was having the time of his life.
"I was running with my parents to the shelter and I was having so much fun," he said. "Grenades were falling all over the place, exploding all around the city but I was having fun. It was like a video game or something."
For many Americans, the idea of a civil war is based in a romanticized bygone time. For Vukusic and his family, though, it was a stark reality of life in the past decade.
Croatia's attempt to gain independence from Yugoslavia lasted from 1991 through 1995. They faced significant military opposition from the Serbs and measures of international indecisiveness before the negotiation of the Dayton Agreement in 1995.
Though Vukusic experienced limited tangible effects of the war (the Serbs only shelled his hometown of Split once and only his uncle was injured), like any one else, his attitude and persona grew out of his upbringing-an upbringing which included the collective national uncertainty a civil war brings.
"There's no sense of entitlement and that's what I like about that guy," Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said. "He's grateful about everything."
Carmody first met Vukusic in a hot, run-down Croatian gym.
"It was a real old beat-up gym and the wood was buckled and there were about 40 kids there," he said. "The coach got them together and they stretched out for awhile and then they just played. No one said a word, they just kept playing and playing."
Carmody recruited Vukusic and former Northwestern standout Davor Duvancic during the same trip to Croatia. According to Duvancic, their club team coach first encouraged them to pursue basketball in America. They thought they might have to go to junior college for a few years before getting a shot at a Division I-A program, but a Northwestern player who had played in Croatia, Patrick Baldwin, pointed Carmody in their direction.
Vukusic's journey from that gym to national prominence hasn't been simple or conventional, but the kid who impressed Carmody with his fundamentals in Croatia has become the Big Ten's leading scorer and one of the national elite.
So far this season, Vukusic, an All-Big Ten candidate and national All-America hopeful, remains Northwestern's scoring leader with a 19.6 points per game average, a marked jump over his 16.8 points per game output last season.
According to Carmody, the offensive improvement makes sense in the context of his career.
"He's gotten better every year," Carmody said. "He's a mature kid."
After posting a 5.1 points per game average his freshman year, he jumped to second on the team his sophomore year with 14.3 points per game. His leap to the elite of the Big Ten was just the next step.
Though that continuity of success was jeopardized early on in his Northwestern career.
The Injury
Vukusic missed time his freshman year and underwent right shoulder surgery that wiped out his sophomore season in 2002-03 and forced him to apply for a medical redshirt. Though the injury never threatened to end his career, Vukusic struggled as he watched the Wildcats fall to a 12-17 record.
"I didn't know what to do," he said. "It was tough watching every game, watching them lose, not being able to be out there."
Being an observer for a year helped him become more of a student of the game, knowledge that boosted his improvement over the subsequent two years.
Yet, like any injury, Vukusic's wasn't simple. He admits he struggled but was never defeated through the year.
"I don't think I ever thought, `I can't do this'," he said.
Carmody echoed his self-confidence, saying he never doubted Vedran could come back from the injury. And then Vukusic took his expectations one step further.
"He turned into one of the best lefty shooters I ever saw," he said.
Coming to America and Learning How to Shoot
Carmody points to his fundamentals as his greatest attribute even today, but it is his shot that has made the highlight reels over the last two years. He's quick to admit, though, that Vedran didn't come to America equipped with the shot to be a leading scorer on any major conference basketball team.
"He had a horrible rotation on his ball," Carmody said. "It was strange because he was so fundamentally sound."
Vukusic admits he struggled with the shot early on, but he gives all the credit for his improvement to the coaches.
"All four coaches have been incredible," he said. "When I came in here I couldn't shoot the ball. They spent time working with me alone."
It's cliché to say that determination and work ethic define a great player, but success on the basketball court has never been handed to anyone.
"If you watch him, he doesn't take days off," Carmody said. "He comes to practice, he works hard, he goes about his business and he has fun but he's out there to accomplish something."
For Vukusic, though, it's rarely hard work.
"I love coming to the gym and forgetting about everything," he said. "I guess I just love the game that much."
Even during his freshman year, when adapting to college, American language and culture conflicted with cravings for a taste of home or family, Vedran said he found a reprieve on the court.
"Basketball took my mind off everything I think," he said. "No matter what happens, when I come to practice it just erases everything."
Becoming the Playmaker
After coming up one win short of eligibility for the National Invitational Tournament last season, the team, loaded with experience and a promising Duke transfer at center, looked poised to make the jump into the postseason this year.
But when point guard T.J. Parker opted to leave Evanston in the off-season to play professionally in France and center Mike Thompson left the team in early December, Vukusic found himself the undisputed leader.
"I never put myself in that role, but it sort of came to me I think," Vukusic said.
Though he's never been a vocal player, Vedran has been forced to become a leader for young players like Craig Moore and Sterling Williams while being the focal point of the offense and the target of opposing defenses.
"I think he's adapted very well, better than I thought he would have to tell you the truth," Carmody said. "We talked about it right after the season last year. I told him he was going to have to do more stepping up to take responsibility for us winning and losing."
In an offense built on crisp passing and perimeter movement, scoring has been limited. Northwestern ranks last in the Big Ten with 59.4 points per game. While it makes Vukusic's 19.6 points per game a more impressive stat it also puts a nightly burden on him as he shoulders the load of the offense. Off-nights can't be had, as evidenced by a five point effort against Illinois in January and the resulting 11-point loss.
Still, Vukusic insists for the most part he's simply continuing to play his game.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm forcing shots, but I never feel pressure to score," he said. "The way the offense works, everybody gets a chance to score."
According to Carmody, it's taken an adjustment. While he's always been a talented passer, accepting the responsibility to take more of the shots has had to come with time.
"He's been reluctant to take more shots than other people and that's something we've had to really work on," he said. "For us to win he has to take shots."
Becoming the star hasn't been a one-dimensional change though.
"It's definitely not his personality," his roommate and teammate Evan Seacat said. "He was a little setback at first but once he realized he was the man, he had to do it."
Maybe it's his guileless persona or understated court presence, but Vedran has never walked into a new situation being called a star. He's always had to earn it.
"The reason why he joined my club team in Split was because people on his previous club told him that he wasn't good enough to play for them," said Davor Duvancic.
That history of underestimation could explain why Vukusic seems almost nonchalant about NBA hype and his professional future.
"I'm working to get [to the NBA], but if not I just want to keep playing basketball for as long as my health or my age allow me," he said.
He's learned not to expect immediate success. Carmody admits that his transformation into a leader didn't happen overnight. It took adaptation and a personality overhaul. But through the many unexpected turns of his career, Vedran has been grounded by the idea that the process to success can be more fun than the accolades that follow.
"Basketball means a lot to him," Duvancic said. "He dedicated his time to basketball as much as possible and the results are here."
Defining the Program
While Vedran points to shooting big men like Dirk Nowitzki and Peja Stojakovic as distant models of his playing style, he said he doesn't follow the NBA. He knows he could be guarding Tim Duncan some night a year from now, but he remains focused on the postseason berth that suddenly seems within reach for a Northwestern team that has thus far labored to find its identity.
Carmody echoed that focus, but said that in the larger context of the program, Vedran's impact will be felt regardless of how this season ends.
"If he could lead us to the postseason that would be great," he said, pausing as he tried to come up with the perfect summation to immortalize Vukusic's career. "He's just been great for the school."
Maybe there's no succinct way to consolidate the praises, but Vedran's impact will be felt in the recruiting sphere as the process becomes more globalized. Most important though may be the image of success he has attached to Northwestern basketball.
"He's an important guy," Carmody said. "People, when we recruit them, they say, `I want to be like that guy.' `Be like Mike' you know? It's `Be like Vedran'."
He's not a Gatorade spokesman yet, but in the world of basketball clichés one would say the sky's the limit.
Vukusic's story couldn't be a movie script because of its constancy. Behind all the turns of his career, Vukusic retained his deep-rooted passion for the game. It defined his early life, helped him adapt to America and will likely propel him into the professional ranks.
His passion exists without frills. It's hidden behind every fluid move to the basket and arching jump shot. He's traveled across the globe to play a game and maybe learn a few things but his simplistic affinity for the game has grounded him through it all.
It has provided him with a perspective that allows him to reconcile the contrasts of his life. Just as he ran from explosions in Croatia like he was a character in a video game he still isn't sure when he's supposed to declare for the NBA draft. The stakes are different, but the attitude remains the same.
It's a serene approach many may claim but few have, an approach a coach like Carmody has learned to value.
"You can learn an awful lot from him," Carmody said. "I've learned an awful lot from that guy, I know that."
