Lumpkin Prepares For His Final Act
2/27/2017 4:02:00 PM | Men's Basketball
By Jasper Scherer
Northwestern Athletic Communications
Ten seconds remained in the game when Sanjay Lumpkin made a break for it. Wisconsin guard Bronson Koenig's desperation 3-pointer had clanked off the rim into the grasp of Bryant McIntosh, and as the Badgers defense closed on Northwestern's point guard, Lumpkin streaked down the court, right arm raised, a clear path to the basket.
Northwestern led 64-56 with less than seven seconds to go when McIntosh's outlet pass reached Lumpkin. The redshirt senior threw down a ferocious dunk, an unnecessary exclamation point that had Chris Collins pumping his fists in jubilation. The sea of stunned Wisconsin fans were rooted to their seats in utter disbelief.
Lumpkin, a sheepish grin flashing across his face after the game, said he got excited and probably should have dribbled out the clock. He got caught up in the moment. It just happened.
In any other situation, Lumpkin's court awareness — something that has come naturally to him since he started watching game film with his stepdad at age 6 — might have stopped him from finishing a play that some saw as disrespectful. But Northwestern's Feb. 12 victory over Wisconsin, the biggest win in program history, deserved something extra.
"We knew we had to earn it tonight, and that's what we did," Collins said following the contest.
Lumpkin, the only fifth-year senior on the roster, knows what's at stake for a Northwestern team on the verge of locking down its first ever NCAA tournament bid. He's one of two players, along with his roommate Nathan Taphorn, who got recruited by Collins' predecessor, Bill Carmody.
Lumpkin's teammates and mentors during his freshman year, when he was sidelined with mononucleosis and a wrist injury, included guys like Alex Marcotullio, Reggie Hearn and Drew Crawford, members of Carmody's 2009-10 and 2011-12 teams that narrowly failed to make the tournament field.
"I've been through a lot," Lumpkin said. "The younger guys, everything they've yet to go through, I've pretty much been through and dealt with. And I feel like I can talk to any of them, and they'll all listen to me. They all know that I'm there for them, just as the older guys were there for me when I was younger."
There's no getting around it: Lumpkin is an old man in college basketball years.
"It's funny, we used to call Drew the grandpa of the team when he was a fifth-year senior," Lumpkin said. "Now that's what I'm called."
Before he joined Northwestern as Chris Collins' assistant coach, Brian James spent 18 years in the NBA with five different teams. Through four decades of coaching, he's seen a wide range of talent and playing styles, coaching the likes of Grant Hill in his prime and Wizards-era Michael Jordan — and Collins, who played for James at Glenbrook North High School.
"This guy is one of my favorite players of all time, regardless of level," James says of Lumpkin. "I can count on one hand the number of practices in our entire tenure here where he hasn't brought his best effort."
James works primarily with the Wildcat big men, so he was well acquainted with the move Lumpkin used against Indiana center Thomas Bryant on Jan. 29, when Lumpkin turned the court under Bryant into an ice skating rink and sent him to the floor for an easy layup. (Northwestern cruised to a 68-55 win.)
The move goes something like this: Lumpkin drives, pump fakes, spins, fakes again, then lays the ball in. He works on it a couple times a week with James, who asks each big man to put himself in the archetypal end-of-game situation — 10 seconds left, tied or down by a point — and win the game with a go-to move.
The idea, James said, is to find a play to hone and feel comfortable breaking out with the game on the line. The repetition breeds familiarity, and in Lumpkin's case, he found the perfect moment to use it: against a taller, slower player who was a bit off-balance.
Taphorn, confined to the bench because of an ankle injury, missed the play. But he didn't need to see the result to know what was coming.
"Once I saw him drive middle with the left hand, I kind of knew what was going to happen," Taphorn said.
The sold-out crowd erupted, and even Vic Law and Scottie Lindsey celebrated on the court. Lumpkin stole a peek at the Northwestern student section. He couldn't help it.
"It's a great feeling," Lumpkin said. "Hearing the crowd roar like that is awesome. At the same time, as much as I wanted to celebrate and look at the crowd, they were pushing the ball. I had to get back on defense."
Sanjay's teammates and coaches may not have been surprised by the spin move, but Northwestern fans are unaccustomed to flashy offensive plays from Lumpkin. Through 130 games at Northwestern, Lumpkin averages 3.2 shots per game. This year he's attempting a career-high 4.0 shots a contest.
Lumpkin's shot selection is meticulous, a mix of cutting layups and, when necessary, wide-open 3-pointers. Volume scorers like McIntosh and Lindsey will hoist up contested looks from time to time; Lumpkin, whose .552 shooting percentage would rank among the Big Ten's leader if he had enough shots to qualify, is more selective.
He's playing smarter overall. Through Lumpkin's first three seasons he'd committed more turnovers than assists, while this year his assist-to-turnover ratio is better than 2-to-1.
Lumpkin has admitted a tendency toward passiveness during his first couple years at Northwestern, to the extent that he hurt the team by passing up open looks and disappearing on offense.
"No question this year I feel like I have been more aggressive," he said. "I've definitely shot more, just been hunting for those opportunities more. I know that I have to bring something to the table offensively. I just have to stay within my role, but take the opportunities when they're there."
It's a tricky balancing act, but one that Lumpkin has mastered playing alongside more athletic scorers. He's on pace to shatter his career highs in field goal and 3-point attempts, and has already shot 12 more free throws than his previous season high.
"He knows he's not going to be the primary option on offense," James said. "But he knows now that [with] how teams defend him, he's going to have to knock down an open shot."
Midway through the 2013-14 season, Lumpkin's first full year, Northwestern hosted 23rd-ranked Illinois at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The physical matchup included a Wildcat lineup where every starter measured 6-foot-5 or taller.
Less than four minutes in, a missed 3-pointer by Illinois' Tracy Abrams took a long bounce off the rim toward Crawford, who stood near the free throw line. Crawford tried to corral the ball with one hand, and Illini guard Joseph Bertrand swiped it away. Lumpkin, standing behind Crawford, dove for the loose ball, collided with Bertrand, and slammed into the floor. His limbs splayed out, while his head knocked against the hardwood.
Lumpkin laid on the ground and cupped his head in his hands, then felt for the missing part of his front tooth that lay in front of him on the court.
"It was funny because he threw his mouthpiece off the floor literally 30 seconds before it happened," Taphorn said. "It was just kind of unfortunate, but he just, he didn't really care. He was like, 'It is what it is, I'll keep playing. I really don't care about my tooth.'"
Northwestern won the defensive battle, 49-43, for Collins' first career Big Ten win.
Though Lumpkin's aggressiveness worked against him on that play — he was whistled for a foul — his assertive style on defense worked in holding the Big Ten's leading scorer, Rayvonte Rice, to 2-of-11 shooting that night.
It was a microcosm of Lumpkin's defensive performance that year: foul-prone and overaggressive at times, but reliable when he could stay in games. (Lumpkin averaged 3.6 fouls per game and fouled out nine times.)
But Lumpkin's toughness — playing the last 34 minutes of a game with a chipped tooth, standing in the way on fast breaks to draw charges, competing for 50/50 loose balls — has earned him the respect of opponents, coaches and teammates.
"We go how he goes," said sophomore center Dererk Pardon. "The way he brings the toughness that he instills in every single one of us, it's just a great thing for us to have."
This year Lumpkin is posting a career high in rebounds by a wide margin, averaging 5.9 per game, up from last year's 5.0. He's 13th in the Big Ten in defensive boards, one of the areas he takes pride in.
"I've always been able to hang my hat on what I do on the defensive end of the floor," Lumpkin said. "That's what got me on the court as a freshman and sophomore."
Now that he's a redshirt senior, this is what a typical weekday looks like for Lumpkin: sleep in, grab "a nice breakfast," go to Welsh-Ryan to shoot, get a lift in, take a nap, come back for practice, head downtown for night class. Lumpkin is working on his master's degree in sports administration, with a flexible schedule that includes an online class on Monday and class in Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"I feel like I'm living the life right now," Lumpkin said. "I've really had a chance to focus on my game."
Naturally, basketball consumes his life. It has formed the center of Lumpkin's universe since age 4, when he began attending games with his stepdad Jim Petersen, a Minnesota Timberwolves TV analyst and former NBA big man who backed up Hakeem Olajuwon in Houston during the 1980s.
"He's basically grown up in the NBA," Petersen said. "He's met everybody — LeBron, Kobe, everybody."
Lumpkin's basketball education began in earnest when he would watch game tape with Petersen while still in elementary school. The pair would break down games, rewinding tape over and over so Petersen could show his stepson, who was still learning about multiplication tables, why someone messed up an assignment on defense or ended up out of place on offense.
"Sanjay and I would sit there and watch playoff games all night long," Petersen said. "I would watch games with him like a coach, not like a dad."
Petersen also put a golf club in Lumpkin's hand when he was 4, the start of a dual sporting career where basketball and golf proved to be innate talents. In high school at Benilde-St. Margaret's in St. Louis Park, Minn., Lumpkin played both sports. Petersen said Sanjay could have just as easily found himself on a college golf team, but in the end, basketball won out. (For the record, Lumpkin is still a scratch golfer.)
Lumpkin's athletic talents are of little surprise: his dad, Sean, played safety for the New Orleans Saints after making the All-Big Ten first team at Minnesota. Lumpkin's Instagram account is flooded with photos of Jim, Sean and his mother, Tika, all of whom have a good relationship.
Petersen, who stepped down in January as associate head coach of the Minnesota Lynx after winning three championships in eight years, taught Lumpkin to see the game through the lens of a coach.
"I said, 'You have to understand [basketball] more than from just the player's perspective,'" Petersen said. "You have to understand all the planning that goes into a scouting report. You have to understand that these coaches are working their butts off for you guys."
This early indoctrination may explain why Collins and James reserve their highest praise for Lumpkin. The way Lumpkin's coaches and teammates talk about him reflect his plays that don't appear on a basic stat page.
"Sanjay brings it every single day," Collins said. "Does it mean he plays great all the time? No. But there's not a day that he doesn't show up and work hard and battle and lock into what we're doing in preparation. There's not a person in that locker room that doesn't respect what he brings."
At least part of Lumpkin's drive stems from his frustrating freshman year, when a confluence of illness and injury pinned him to the bench. Unsure of his medical redshirt status until the end of the year, Lumpkin spent the entire season under the possibility of losing a year of eligibility. (He'd played in four games at the beginning of the season.)
"One of the biggest things for me was seeing what environments we had to play in and seeing how hard teams play," Lumpkin said. "And after seeing that, I couldn't wait to get back on the court."
He remembered the feeling of missing games. And when a new coach came in, Lumpkin just wanted to play basketball — no matter who called plays or ran practices.
"It was a new coaching staff, a complete culture change," Lumpkin said. "It was definitely an adjustment, and it was hard for some guys. But everyone had to buy into Coach Collins, and right now we see he got a lot of guys to lay the foundation for what we're doing right now. It's great to see everything come together. But we're not satisfied right now."
Northwestern Athletic Communications
Ten seconds remained in the game when Sanjay Lumpkin made a break for it. Wisconsin guard Bronson Koenig's desperation 3-pointer had clanked off the rim into the grasp of Bryant McIntosh, and as the Badgers defense closed on Northwestern's point guard, Lumpkin streaked down the court, right arm raised, a clear path to the basket.
Northwestern led 64-56 with less than seven seconds to go when McIntosh's outlet pass reached Lumpkin. The redshirt senior threw down a ferocious dunk, an unnecessary exclamation point that had Chris Collins pumping his fists in jubilation. The sea of stunned Wisconsin fans were rooted to their seats in utter disbelief.
Lumpkin, a sheepish grin flashing across his face after the game, said he got excited and probably should have dribbled out the clock. He got caught up in the moment. It just happened.
In any other situation, Lumpkin's court awareness — something that has come naturally to him since he started watching game film with his stepdad at age 6 — might have stopped him from finishing a play that some saw as disrespectful. But Northwestern's Feb. 12 victory over Wisconsin, the biggest win in program history, deserved something extra.
"We knew we had to earn it tonight, and that's what we did," Collins said following the contest.
Lumpkin, the only fifth-year senior on the roster, knows what's at stake for a Northwestern team on the verge of locking down its first ever NCAA tournament bid. He's one of two players, along with his roommate Nathan Taphorn, who got recruited by Collins' predecessor, Bill Carmody.
Lumpkin's teammates and mentors during his freshman year, when he was sidelined with mononucleosis and a wrist injury, included guys like Alex Marcotullio, Reggie Hearn and Drew Crawford, members of Carmody's 2009-10 and 2011-12 teams that narrowly failed to make the tournament field.
"I've been through a lot," Lumpkin said. "The younger guys, everything they've yet to go through, I've pretty much been through and dealt with. And I feel like I can talk to any of them, and they'll all listen to me. They all know that I'm there for them, just as the older guys were there for me when I was younger."
There's no getting around it: Lumpkin is an old man in college basketball years.
"It's funny, we used to call Drew the grandpa of the team when he was a fifth-year senior," Lumpkin said. "Now that's what I'm called."
Before he joined Northwestern as Chris Collins' assistant coach, Brian James spent 18 years in the NBA with five different teams. Through four decades of coaching, he's seen a wide range of talent and playing styles, coaching the likes of Grant Hill in his prime and Wizards-era Michael Jordan — and Collins, who played for James at Glenbrook North High School.
"This guy is one of my favorite players of all time, regardless of level," James says of Lumpkin. "I can count on one hand the number of practices in our entire tenure here where he hasn't brought his best effort."
James works primarily with the Wildcat big men, so he was well acquainted with the move Lumpkin used against Indiana center Thomas Bryant on Jan. 29, when Lumpkin turned the court under Bryant into an ice skating rink and sent him to the floor for an easy layup. (Northwestern cruised to a 68-55 win.)
The move goes something like this: Lumpkin drives, pump fakes, spins, fakes again, then lays the ball in. He works on it a couple times a week with James, who asks each big man to put himself in the archetypal end-of-game situation — 10 seconds left, tied or down by a point — and win the game with a go-to move.
The idea, James said, is to find a play to hone and feel comfortable breaking out with the game on the line. The repetition breeds familiarity, and in Lumpkin's case, he found the perfect moment to use it: against a taller, slower player who was a bit off-balance.
Taphorn, confined to the bench because of an ankle injury, missed the play. But he didn't need to see the result to know what was coming.
"Once I saw him drive middle with the left hand, I kind of knew what was going to happen," Taphorn said.
The sold-out crowd erupted, and even Vic Law and Scottie Lindsey celebrated on the court. Lumpkin stole a peek at the Northwestern student section. He couldn't help it.
"It's a great feeling," Lumpkin said. "Hearing the crowd roar like that is awesome. At the same time, as much as I wanted to celebrate and look at the crowd, they were pushing the ball. I had to get back on defense."
Sanjay's teammates and coaches may not have been surprised by the spin move, but Northwestern fans are unaccustomed to flashy offensive plays from Lumpkin. Through 130 games at Northwestern, Lumpkin averages 3.2 shots per game. This year he's attempting a career-high 4.0 shots a contest.
Lumpkin's shot selection is meticulous, a mix of cutting layups and, when necessary, wide-open 3-pointers. Volume scorers like McIntosh and Lindsey will hoist up contested looks from time to time; Lumpkin, whose .552 shooting percentage would rank among the Big Ten's leader if he had enough shots to qualify, is more selective.
He's playing smarter overall. Through Lumpkin's first three seasons he'd committed more turnovers than assists, while this year his assist-to-turnover ratio is better than 2-to-1.
Lumpkin has admitted a tendency toward passiveness during his first couple years at Northwestern, to the extent that he hurt the team by passing up open looks and disappearing on offense.
"No question this year I feel like I have been more aggressive," he said. "I've definitely shot more, just been hunting for those opportunities more. I know that I have to bring something to the table offensively. I just have to stay within my role, but take the opportunities when they're there."
It's a tricky balancing act, but one that Lumpkin has mastered playing alongside more athletic scorers. He's on pace to shatter his career highs in field goal and 3-point attempts, and has already shot 12 more free throws than his previous season high.
"He knows he's not going to be the primary option on offense," James said. "But he knows now that [with] how teams defend him, he's going to have to knock down an open shot."
Midway through the 2013-14 season, Lumpkin's first full year, Northwestern hosted 23rd-ranked Illinois at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The physical matchup included a Wildcat lineup where every starter measured 6-foot-5 or taller.
Less than four minutes in, a missed 3-pointer by Illinois' Tracy Abrams took a long bounce off the rim toward Crawford, who stood near the free throw line. Crawford tried to corral the ball with one hand, and Illini guard Joseph Bertrand swiped it away. Lumpkin, standing behind Crawford, dove for the loose ball, collided with Bertrand, and slammed into the floor. His limbs splayed out, while his head knocked against the hardwood.
Lumpkin laid on the ground and cupped his head in his hands, then felt for the missing part of his front tooth that lay in front of him on the court.
"It was funny because he threw his mouthpiece off the floor literally 30 seconds before it happened," Taphorn said. "It was just kind of unfortunate, but he just, he didn't really care. He was like, 'It is what it is, I'll keep playing. I really don't care about my tooth.'"
Northwestern won the defensive battle, 49-43, for Collins' first career Big Ten win.
Though Lumpkin's aggressiveness worked against him on that play — he was whistled for a foul — his assertive style on defense worked in holding the Big Ten's leading scorer, Rayvonte Rice, to 2-of-11 shooting that night.
It was a microcosm of Lumpkin's defensive performance that year: foul-prone and overaggressive at times, but reliable when he could stay in games. (Lumpkin averaged 3.6 fouls per game and fouled out nine times.)
But Lumpkin's toughness — playing the last 34 minutes of a game with a chipped tooth, standing in the way on fast breaks to draw charges, competing for 50/50 loose balls — has earned him the respect of opponents, coaches and teammates.
"We go how he goes," said sophomore center Dererk Pardon. "The way he brings the toughness that he instills in every single one of us, it's just a great thing for us to have."
This year Lumpkin is posting a career high in rebounds by a wide margin, averaging 5.9 per game, up from last year's 5.0. He's 13th in the Big Ten in defensive boards, one of the areas he takes pride in.
"I've always been able to hang my hat on what I do on the defensive end of the floor," Lumpkin said. "That's what got me on the court as a freshman and sophomore."
Now that he's a redshirt senior, this is what a typical weekday looks like for Lumpkin: sleep in, grab "a nice breakfast," go to Welsh-Ryan to shoot, get a lift in, take a nap, come back for practice, head downtown for night class. Lumpkin is working on his master's degree in sports administration, with a flexible schedule that includes an online class on Monday and class in Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"I feel like I'm living the life right now," Lumpkin said. "I've really had a chance to focus on my game."
Naturally, basketball consumes his life. It has formed the center of Lumpkin's universe since age 4, when he began attending games with his stepdad Jim Petersen, a Minnesota Timberwolves TV analyst and former NBA big man who backed up Hakeem Olajuwon in Houston during the 1980s.
"He's basically grown up in the NBA," Petersen said. "He's met everybody — LeBron, Kobe, everybody."
Lumpkin's basketball education began in earnest when he would watch game tape with Petersen while still in elementary school. The pair would break down games, rewinding tape over and over so Petersen could show his stepson, who was still learning about multiplication tables, why someone messed up an assignment on defense or ended up out of place on offense.
"Sanjay and I would sit there and watch playoff games all night long," Petersen said. "I would watch games with him like a coach, not like a dad."
Petersen also put a golf club in Lumpkin's hand when he was 4, the start of a dual sporting career where basketball and golf proved to be innate talents. In high school at Benilde-St. Margaret's in St. Louis Park, Minn., Lumpkin played both sports. Petersen said Sanjay could have just as easily found himself on a college golf team, but in the end, basketball won out. (For the record, Lumpkin is still a scratch golfer.)
Lumpkin's athletic talents are of little surprise: his dad, Sean, played safety for the New Orleans Saints after making the All-Big Ten first team at Minnesota. Lumpkin's Instagram account is flooded with photos of Jim, Sean and his mother, Tika, all of whom have a good relationship.
Petersen, who stepped down in January as associate head coach of the Minnesota Lynx after winning three championships in eight years, taught Lumpkin to see the game through the lens of a coach.
"I said, 'You have to understand [basketball] more than from just the player's perspective,'" Petersen said. "You have to understand all the planning that goes into a scouting report. You have to understand that these coaches are working their butts off for you guys."
This early indoctrination may explain why Collins and James reserve their highest praise for Lumpkin. The way Lumpkin's coaches and teammates talk about him reflect his plays that don't appear on a basic stat page.
"Sanjay brings it every single day," Collins said. "Does it mean he plays great all the time? No. But there's not a day that he doesn't show up and work hard and battle and lock into what we're doing in preparation. There's not a person in that locker room that doesn't respect what he brings."
At least part of Lumpkin's drive stems from his frustrating freshman year, when a confluence of illness and injury pinned him to the bench. Unsure of his medical redshirt status until the end of the year, Lumpkin spent the entire season under the possibility of losing a year of eligibility. (He'd played in four games at the beginning of the season.)
"One of the biggest things for me was seeing what environments we had to play in and seeing how hard teams play," Lumpkin said. "And after seeing that, I couldn't wait to get back on the court."
He remembered the feeling of missing games. And when a new coach came in, Lumpkin just wanted to play basketball — no matter who called plays or ran practices.
"It was a new coaching staff, a complete culture change," Lumpkin said. "It was definitely an adjustment, and it was hard for some guys. But everyone had to buy into Coach Collins, and right now we see he got a lot of guys to lay the foundation for what we're doing right now. It's great to see everything come together. But we're not satisfied right now."
••••••
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