SANFORD, Fla.---
“Waking up and coming to work out is like kind of nothing now,” CJ Walker said before starting his morning work out routine. He’s on the court shooting six days a week, with three days of lifting and three days of recovery.
“It’s my favorite part,” The 6’8 Oregon sophomore said as he finishes a set.
Walker is back home in Sanford after finishing his freshman season with the Oregon Ducks basketball team.
“Honestly I believe we would have went all the way,” Walker said about the Ducks tournament chances. That is if the Coronavirus pandemic didn’t cut the season short.
“We had just started getting it together as a team,” Walker said. Oregon finished the season ranked 13th in the country and 1st in the Pac-12. There is unfinished business for the team and for him personally.
“Going to college, definitely was a little bit of adversity,” Walker said. “Well not even a little bit, just a lot of adversity.”
A 5-star recruit out of Oak Ridge high school in Orlando, Walker was viewed as a player with future NBA lottery potential. He averaged 4.0 PPG, 2.5 REB and 14.9 minutes a night. He was able to carve out a role with his defense and rebounding, but expects much more out of himself offensively.
“People have their ups and downs through their careers. I’m not really going to look much on my freshman year. I’m just going to work for it.”
“I call it the transition year,” Marcus Robinson said. Robinson is Walker’s former AAU coach and long time mentor. He remembers the first time he ever got to see Walker play back in 2011.
“Tall kid, about 6’0, 6’1, big shirt on. I’m like dude can you play,” Robinson remembers. “So I had some cones down, I’m going to give you five minutes and I can tell if you can play or not. CJ goes through the cones, left right, euro step. I’m like hold up where your parents at?”
Robinson says they’ve been close ever since. He helped guide Walker through his freshman season. Together they are confident they’ll get better results his sophomore year.
“He’s going to explode and that’s what this off season is about. That’s my message to him,” Robinson said. “It can’t be like I was in year one, we’ve got to be better in year two.”
“While I’m here just take everything in that I can,” Walker said. “Get all the positive out of being home, just put all of that positivity to my work. That way when I go next year, I already know what’s expected.”