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Almost daily, Deshaun Thomas hears the pleas, and they aren’t even from Indiana coach Tom Crean.
They come from teachers and friends, from strangers and students. Please, they say, stay in Indiana. Play for the Hoosiers.
“It’s an every-day thing,” Thomas said. “It’s ‘Are you going to transfer? Are you going to go to IU? Why Ohio State?’ I told everybody it’s what’s best for me.
“It’s a lot of pressure, but I stay in my books, not worry about it too much. I’m only a junior, I got one more year and then just worry about it next year.”
Thomas collected his second consecutive Tiffany Gooden Award, given to the best boys or girls basketball player in the Summit Athletic Conference, at a banquet co-sponsored by The Journal Gazette and U.S. Cellular on Monday.
He says it is easy to answer everyone’s questions.
Yes, he’s still going to play for Ohio State. No, he’s not leaving Fort Wayne his senior year for Oak Hill or any other prep school. Instead, he’ll focus on trying to win three state titles in a row at Bishop Luers, trying to become an All-American and becoming the first player since the inception of the Gooden Award to win it three times.
“It was never a thought,” Thomas said of leaving for a prep school. “It was just a rumor going around. This is Indiana. This is where my family is at. Putting Indiana on the map, this is home to me right here, right now. I’m here. I’m not going nowhere. I’m staying at Bishop Luers.”
There’s also one other reason for Thomas to stay: the chance to become the all-time leading scorer in Indiana high school history. Thomas is 881 points behind the all-time Indiana leader, Damon Bailey, after averaging 30.3 points his junior year. So how does he reach that magical number of 3,134 points? By continuing to improve and doing what he did to get him there.
So far, it has been an impressive ride for Thomas, a fourth-team Parade All-American and northeast Indiana’s all-time leading scorer.
The trek to legend, though, still goes through Bailey – and through the rest of Indiana.
“You know he’s going to get around you and get his points,” Bluffton senior center Brock Woodward said. “You just have to take it. You just have to move on because if you let it get to you, you’re not going to stick with him.”
In other awards, Elmhurst’s Mark Redding and Snider’s Ray Sims were named the SAC girls and boys coaches of the year.
