Victor Oladipo still surprising his high school coach

• Oladipo%27s HS coach on the guard%27s rise%3A %27I never would have imagined ...%27
• He was a very raw player who has worked on his ball handling and shot
• Oladipo%27s biggest asset is his work ethic and it translates to every facet of his game

HYATTSVILLE, Md. — Mike Jones leaned back in his chair in his cramped basketball office at DeMatha High School on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Around him, the walls were plastered with photos and posters of past and current DeMatha basketball greats – and there have been plenty at this hoops powerhouse – including photos and stories featuring IU's Victor Oladipo.

He was navigating memory lane, recalling the first time he saw the raw Oladipo in eighth grade, remembering how Oladipo was always first when the team was running wind sprints, telling stories about his relentless work ethic and how he developed from an "athlete'' with limited basketball skills into an NCAA player of the year candidate.

One story, though, sticks out when talking about Oladipo, who will lead No. 1 seed Indiana into Thursday night's Sweet Sixteen game against No. 4 seed Syracuse.

It was 2008, Oladipo's junior year at DeMatha, and Jones, the head coach, had a problem. He had seven players who were capable of starting. Only five could start.

"I started talking about the predicament I was in, told them we could do it like North Carolina once did and just rotate guys,'' Jones said. "I started to go through that and Victor raises his hand. `Coach, I'll come off the bench.' So we rotated the other six and Victor came in off the bench.

"That told me how much he was about winning. He was willing to sacrifice for the good of the team. That's pretty rare for a high school kid.''

Jones is honest about Oladipo's rise to prominence and acclaim: He never saw this coming. Not in a million years. Oladipo was a good high school basketball player, really flourishing as a senior on a loaded DeMatha team, but to now being labeled as an NBA lottery pick?

Absurd.

"I'm definitely surprised,'' Jones said with a laugh. "I never would have imagined he would leave Indiana early, or have the option to leave Indiana early, and become a potential lottery pick.

"At the same time, I'm not completely surprised. In 2010, when he left (DeMatha), I put a clip of his highlights on Facebook. The caption was something like, `This young man will return Indiana to its prominent role in NCAA basketball.' And I firmly believed it. Just with his passion and energy, he would change the culture.

"I didn't know he would be an all-American and a potential player of the year, but I knew he'd be infectious to everybody in the program.''

The first time Jones saw Oladipo, the Upper Marlboro, Md., native was an eighth grader playing CYO basketball. Jones was in attendance to watch Quinn Cook, who would go on to play at DeMatha and is now at Duke. But Jones couldn't take his eyes off the spindly kid with the high-octane motor.

He couldn't shoot the ball, had minimal ball-handling skills, but he defended and he rebounded and he played like his hair was on fire.

"This kid was everywhere,'' Jones said. "He was very vocal, always around the ball, got a lot of rebounds. He just did a really good job of making himself seen. After the game, I talked to his mother and eventually he joined us at DeMatha.''

Jones smiled.

"He was very raw,'' he said. "In the eighth grade, he couldn't do much of anything, but he played hard. And over four years, he learned how to play basketball. That's all about his work ethic and the coaches who worked with him. He always wanted to work. He was a tremendous athlete, but at that point, obviously not a guy who was going to be able to score a lot of points. When we had him here, we didn't call a lot of plays for him.''

Jones and his staff thought Oladipo would be what they called a "program guy.'' He wouldn't be a big-time player, but he'd be a nice player to have around.

"I thought, `He doesn't have skills, but he plays hard, he's a good kid; as a freshman, he'll play on the freshman team, as a sophomore he'll be on the JV, as a junior he'll be on the varsity and won't play and maybe his senior year he'll contribute a little bit,'' Jones said.

Oladipo surprised them.

He's still surprising them.

After breaking his foot his freshman year, he made the varsity his second year, much to the coaches' amazement.

His junior year, he was good enough to start, but willingly came off the bench.

His senior year, he became a three-star recruit (out of five stars), averaging 11.9 points, 10.3 rebounds and 3.6 blocks for a dominant, star-laden DeMatha team that won the city championship.

When IU recruited him hard and early, Indiana fans asked, "Who?'' Oladipo didn't have the pedigree, didn't have the multiple stars next to his name. But Tom Crean and his staff saw something special. They saw a guy, specifically, who loved to defend.

"When you coach a guy like Dwyane Wade, you're always looking for the next one, and you realize, they're not really out there, so you're out there looking for some of the same traits,'' Crean said of Oladipo earlier this year. "We saw that talent, that upside, the athleticism, how humble he is and how undervalued. There wasn't a doubt in our mind he was going to be a key recruit.''

Crean talked Wednesday about the first time he saw him as a ninth grader.

"The first thing is his eye contact,'' Crean said. "This is somebody that looked his coaches in the eye and looked his teammates in his eye, and I know that sounds like a simple thing, but in this day and age, it's not. So he stood out that he was aware, he had good self-awareness. Then when you would see him play, the thing to me was the burst of athleticism, what he was like around the rim, and then just this innate desire to be a great defender, especially on the ball.

"How he could spread out with these long arms and quick feet and get his nose down in the players' chest and not hop and get beat off the dribble, but really, really work at it. So the athleticism and the desire to defend were the first things that stood out to me.''

Ask anybody about Oladipo, and the first thing they mention is his work ethic. He didn't just pop out of the womb with this skill set. His game was built through painstaking repetition and sweat equity.

Over time, Oladipo developed a close relationship with then-DeMatha assistant Dave Adkins, now an assistant coach with the University of Maryland's women's basketball team. Adkins would pull into the DeMatha gym parking lot at 6:25 a.m. By 6:30, Oladipo was there, whether the workout was required or optional.

His shooting was so under-developed, Adkins eschewed the ball and the basket and instead placed Oladipo in front of a mirror. There, he painstakingly did drills, mimicking the proper form on his shot, time and time again.

"Coach Adkins would make me sit in front of a mirror because my elbow used to be out and he basically changed my whole basketball form,'' Oladipo said Wednesday. "My form was horrendous before then and he basically changed it. We kept my elbow in and we would do same one-two follow-through motion until he left for Maryland.''

Before a guest leaves his office, Jones wants to tell another Oladipo story, one of many he's proud to tell.

"During the summer, all our (DeMatha) guys in college, I send them a text and ask them, `When you're home, I'd like to have you speak at my camp,'' Jones said. "I say that to Victor, he says, `I'd rather come and work the camp.' `What do you mean, you want to work? You'll put in more time and make less money.' `No, I want to work. I want to get a workout in before camp, work the camp, then workout and lift after camp. And I love being around the kids. What else am I going to do?'

"That's Victor.''

Bob Kravitz also writes for the Indianapolis Star