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INDIANAPOLIS – Luka Garza knew what everyone was expecting before returning for one last race as the undisputed star of Iowa.
Pressure? Garza felt it, okay, enough to know that his sanity demanded the same attention as his game.
“I needed some meditation to lean on, so that I could mostly go out there and be myself and not worry about anything else,” Garza said.
This explains best why the 6-foot-11, 265-pound senior player is the Associated Press’s National Men’s College Basketball Player of the Year after finishing runner-up last season. He was the runaway choice for the award announced Thursday, receiving 50 of 63 votes from the 25 PA’s Top 25 voters.
Ayo Dosunmu, who led Illinois to the Big Ten tournament title and the No.1 seed in the NCAA, was second with six votes, followed by Oklahoma State rookie Cade Cunningham with three. Gonzaga’s Corey Kispert and Baylor’s Jared Butler each won two votes.
Garza ranked second nationally with an average of 24.1 points and 8.7 rebounds. He’s improved shooting percentages across the board – including going from 36% in 3 points last year to 44% – and his roll assist ratio after working on overtaking double and triple teams. ‘he knew it would all happen. all season.
Garza led the Hawkeyes to a No.2 seed in the NCAA tournament, then totaled nearly half of their points (36 of 80) in an upset second-round loss to Oregon. The Washington, DC native finished as the career leader (2306) at Iowa, who will retire his No.55 jersey.
“We may never see another like him,” said coach Fran McCaffery.
Sure, he had the big numbers and helped the Hawkeyes spend most of the season in the domestic top 10. But Garza represents the daily ritual of resetting his mind while focusing on something as simple as his breathing led to it all – especially in a season altered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You had to be in your home in quarantine, go to the gym, come home,” Garza said. “There is no distraction. If you play the wrong game, that’s all you think about. So you have to be in a healthy mental space or you would just let it eat you up – especially a person like me. who thinks as much as I do.
“I needed it to be a daily thing because I was dealing with this anxiety every day. It really became something that helped me a lot and contributed to my ability to be there and be in the moment every game and every day. “
Garza was second behind Obi Toppin of Dayton for last year’s award. It was during this season that he began meditation on game day at the suggestion of his father, a former Idaho player.
As Frank Garza said: “It’s worth thinking about the gym.”
“Every player goes through this performance anxiety and over-thinking so they were not immune,” said elder Garza. “But what happened as the stakes were higher and the performance requirements were higher, the pressure gets to the same level. And if you don’t deal with it, it will consume you. It will eat you alive.”
As a senior, Garza switched to daily meditation, typically 20 to 25 minutes via Zoom with his father and Frank Garza’s business partner, GuruGanesha Khalsa. Pre-game sessions sometimes included teammates.
“I got to a point where I was waking up and doing meditation every day throughout the season because it was a daily thing that I was dealing with,” he said. “I turned on the TV and we talked about my name. I needed to be able to focus only on what I wanted to accomplish as a team.”
Some of that spilled over into games as well, with Garza doing breathing exercises before free throws or during timeouts.
He also sticks to meditation as he pursues a career in the NBA. He has all the evidence he needs to make it work.
“There are a lot of things in life that you want to happen or want to be better than them and everything like that,” he said. “So it’s going to hit someone at some point, and it’s just a very useful tool for really anyone.”
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