How Nebraska’s Derrick Walker got ‘out of the dark place’ and began playing his best basketball

Derrick Walker’s alarm blared, but he didn’t want to move.

On those early mornings in late October, ahead of grueling Nebraska basketball practices, the senior standout couldn’t find the strength to climb out of bed.

“There’s a lot of days where I was waking up and I didn’t want to move,” Walker told the Journal Star. “I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to smile. A lot of days, I would have rather just sit in a dark room than go outside and practice or talk to someone.

There was no one specific catalyst for Walker’s depressive fog. The timing of its inception is a blur, he said. But those intrusive thoughts, he remembers.

“You start to question yourself, like, ‘Man, it’s been six years. Why am I still here? Am I that bad? What is it? Why am I still here?’ I was having trouble finding my calling, you know? ‘What am I called here to do?’”

Fast-forward three months.

Walker’s in the midst of his best season yet, averaging 14 points, 7.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game, while shooting 60% from the field as he’s mere days from his third and final senior day at Nebraska.

The ceremony, one he’ll share with fellow seniors Sam Griesel and Emmanuel Bandoumel, will likely require tissues for those in attendance.

“It’s gonna be emotional for people that have been around him for a long time in this place,” said Luca Virgilio, Nebraska’s director of basketball strategies and business operations.

But the secret to Walker’s 2022-23 breakout originates last fall when he stepped away from the game. Before he could produce his best season, he needed to find his passion again.

Walker is in a class all his own.

He is, at the age of 25, the last man standing from Fred Hoiberg’s first season in 2019. He’s also the only one left from 2020, too.

“I’ve seen a lot of change. I’ve had a new team,” Walker said. “I’ve had new teammates every year. We have a completely new staff. We have a whole new AD. Football coaches are new. I’ve seen a lot, been through a lot myself on top of all the changes.

“People don’t think about that. Me, Luca and Fred are the only ones that have been here since he got the job. That’s three people in four years.”

Hoiberg added: “It seems like 30 years ago when Derrick got here. It’s crazy to think back, just everything that we’ve been through, just the three of us.”

It’s not just the changes at Nebraska Walker has witnessed. There have been plenty in the greater landscape of the sport, too.

He played several years of college hoops before the advent of NIL. He’d been in college for three years before COVID-19 wrecked everything in 2020. And, he’s of the age where he had to adhere to the old rules of sitting out for a full season after transferring.

That’s where some of his adversity begins.

Walker went 658 days — a year and nine months — between his last basketball game at Tennessee (March 24, 2019) and his first at Nebraska (Jan. 10, 2021).

His 2019-20 season was lost due to transfer rules. Then COVID-19 hit. Then Walker’s 14-game suspension for undisclosed violations of NCAA and Tennessee rules.

“Although I was suspended, that didn’t define me as a person,” Walker said. “It was tough, because I missed half a season, so you think about it, like, ‘How does that affect your career? What do people think about you? What does it look like when you finally start to play again? Will you be ready?

“I felt like I let myself down. I let my teammates down. And I let, most importantly, my mom, my family down.”

And then, after more than a year and a half of waiting, Walker was hit with another mandatory break. He tested positive for COVID-19 the day after his return to the floor against Indiana.

Between Walker’s series of unfortunate events, he had ample time to reflect.

“If there’s something you can control, control it. If there’s something that you can’t, then let it go,” Walker said. “That’s not to say you can’t be mad about it, but I couldn’t control that I couldn’t play.

“I could have controlled what I did to prevent that, but I didn’t. It was nobody else’s fault but mine. So, I can’t weep around like the world is trying to screw me over.”

Walker could have walked away after the 2021-22 season.

He’d been in college for ages, having been at Nebraska three years already and at Tennessee for two years before that.

He’d already graduated with his bachelor’s degree in child, youth and family studies in May 2021 — becoming the first in his household to graduate from college.

“Emotionally, I was ready to go. Emotionally, I was tired. Emotionally, I was drained,” Walker said. “But I can’t let emotions lead the way I move and think. I can’t let emotions just dictate how I live my life. Logically, staying was the best situation for me.”

Walker could have probably gone overseas to play basketball instead of taking his COVID year, but he admits he wasn’t ready for that.

He could have transferred somewhere else, too. He said “a lot” of teams asked him if he was going to transfer. But he didn’t want to be falsely sold on an opportunity that may not have been in his best interest.

“I have a lot of trust in Hoiberg, and he has a lot of trust in me,” Walker said. “He genuinely cares about me. I’ve been here a month or two less than him. I wouldn’t want to put my life in no one else’s hands.”

But last fall, Walker didn’t feel like playing at all. He approached his coaches about his state of mind. Why didn’t he want to practice? Why didn’t he want to get out of bed? He felt he needed to do something, but wasn’t sure where to start.

Through conversations with the Nebraska staff, they worked on an interim solution: give Walker the space and resources to heal and recover.

Enter Walker’s five-game absence for previously undisclosed “medical reasons.”

“The biggest thing when somebody that you care about so much is going through something like that, you just want to do everything you can to get them out of the dark place,” Hoiberg said. “I don’t know if Derrick would have tried to fight through that what would have happened, if it would have been worse.

“We wanted to give him the necessary space to get through it and be there for him every step of the way. And when it was time to get back on the floor, we were gonna be there. We weren’t gonna force him. We weren’t gonna push him. We just wanted to be there for him.”

Missing those games, Walker said, was instrumental in his recovery.

For those three weeks, he didn’t have to think. It helped him escape and release some of the pressure he was under. He, feeling like he had minimal responsibilities, was able to find himself.

“I felt like I could focus on myself, for once,” Walker said. “That’s what helped me best. Until you get put into a situation like mine where you’re forced to help yourself, you can go one of two ways. You can make it worse, or you can make it better. I chose to make it better.”

There’s one thing both Hoiberg and Virgilio want you to know about Walker.

It’s not how accurate he is shooting the ball. It’s not his court vision. It’s not anything related to basketball.

It’s how much he personally invests his time into the Lincoln community, whether that be with giving kids extra time after games or volunteering with the Special Olympics, local youth groups, local schools or at the Malone Center.

“He’s a person that wants to help people who are not as lucky as him,” Virgilio said. “He grew up with a lot of friends that didn’t have the opportunities he had. He didn’t forget that. He’s just trying to mentor them and help them in a delicate stage of their life.

“It’s pretty unique to me. You don’t have to do that. Nobody’s asking you to do that. He’s being more and more involved in all of these activities and helping underprivileged people and kids. He really cares about that.”

Why does he care about that?

The origin is simple. He wants to be the person that he needed as an inner-city kid from Kansas City, Missouri.

“I never had that person in my life that I was just so excited to see,” Walker said. “Where I come from, you don’t really see college players. It’s just nice to know that if there’s anything I can do to inspire them — they want to be seen. A lot of them kept telling me to come back.

“And it makes them go harder when they see someone that they look up to, they want to do things right. They want to be the best they can.”

So, in turn, Walker wants to be the best he can — on and off the floor. And that dedication has turned him into a leader Nebraska can depend on.

He’s on the team’s leadership council. He represented Nebraska for the Big Ten Life Series trip to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. He’s been on the Tom Osborne Citizenship team twice.

He’s been a key cog in Nebraska’s turnaround, not just this season, but helping set the foundation during NU’s lean years. Even when he couldn’t play, Walker essentially served as another coach through his vocal leadership.

“I’m really happy and proud of him for coming back and wanting to make a difference and really wanting to flip and help get the culture where it needs to be if you want a sustainable winning program,” Hoiberg said. “We’ve just been through a lot, but he’s always gonna go down as one of my all-time favorites.”

Nebraska still has at least three games left this season. Maybe more, depending on how the Big Ten Tournament and a potential postseason tournament berth shake out.

Walker isn’t shying away from knowing the end of this lengthy chapter is coming to a close. His primary focus is on this team, but he knows he’d be mistaken if he didn’t spend at least a little energy thinking about what lies ahead for his future.

“I know I’ll have an opportunity somewhere at the end of the season, so worrying about it now won’t do anything for me, because it’s not like I can sign with a team now,” Walker said. “Even after this, yeah, my performance is up to me, but where I go is in the hands of someone else.”

But his growth in his game isn’t what he’s most proud of. Not even close.

It’s who he’s become as a person.

“I’ve achieved some things that you can’t take away from me,” Walker said.