Until this past offseason, West Side’s Tyler Crews wasn’t ready to even scratch the surface of his ability.
But in the 6-foot-10 center’s final season with the Cougars, who have seven seniors and a group of underclassmen that includes promising freshmen Prentiss Gates and DeShawn Clay Jr., something has clicked.
“This year, it’s different for me,” Crews said. “I see it differently. I feel like I have to be a leader. I’m mature. I’m finally a basketball player. But this year is not just about me, though. It’s about getting my younger guys together and letting them know what I’ve seen and what I’ve been through and everything they need to know so next year and down the line, they know what to do and what it takes to win.
“I just want to give back to the team for all the knowledge and hard work and time my coaches gave me, put into me, and I wasn’t ready for it. But now I feel I can give back to them by being a leader and being a role model and being a mentor and making sure everybody under me understands what they have to do and what they have to be to win. That would be such an awesome feeling, just to win.”
West Side coach Chris Buggs believes in Crews.
“The sky’s the limit for him,” Buggs said. “I told him he can take care of his family if he takes it seriously, with the way the NCAA and NIL is. Just him being humble and learning and working hard, he can definitely play at a high level at some point in his career.”
Crews has begun to show the range of his talent this season. He was averaging 8.5 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.0 blocked shots for the Cougars (1-2) before their loss at Lake Central on Tuesday. His performance has come after he suffered a broken right thumb less than two months ago. He got cleared to play right before the season started.
“He’s really having an impact on defense, and he’s going to do even a lot better when he’s fully healthy,” Buggs said.
Another injury, a hyperextended right knee last season, served as something of a turning point for Crews. He said he had been “very immature” as a sophomore and “was lacking knowledge of basketball and didn’t understand what I needed to do to get on the court.”
Crews then opened last season as a starter. But after he returned from the injury that cost him eight games over the course of about a month, he barely played the rest of the way. He didn’t play at all in the Class 3A sectional, which ended for West Side with a loss to East Chicago Central in the championship game. His lack of minutes and the team’s defeat struck a nerve.
“I wasn’t there to step up for my team,” Crews said. “Now I feel like I can. Last year, I didn’t, and it just hurt. It hurt to lose and not be able to do anything about it. Not to say I wasn’t included, but I felt like a ghost. I’m almost 7-foot, and it’s frustrating that I’m the tallest guy in the area and I can’t produce for my team and make an impact for us to win.
“It was just a frustrating feeling, but I understand. I wasn’t ready for a big moment like that, a big game like that. If I went out there, I probably would’ve froze. I just wasn’t there yet to the point where my coach could have trust in me. If my coach can’t trust me, then I can’t play. It’s 100% on my end. I had to grow and develop from that.”
Crews has learned to trust his coaches too.
“Now I understand they’re telling me the truth,” he said. “They’ve been there. They’ve sent guys to the highest levels. They’ve worked with guys at the highest levels. They have contact with guys at the highest levels. So it’s best for me to listen. Now I just understand how good of a program this is, the connections.
“My coaches really just are blessings. To have the love and patience for us, they’ll really risk it all for us, and I really appreciate that. If you come to West Side and you work hard and you listen to the coaches and do what they ask you to do, you’re guaranteed to go to school.”
So Crews went to work in the weight room. He gained 15 pounds to get to 235.
“At first, I used to see it like, ‘It’s too hard,’” he said. “But now I see it like, ‘This is my future.’ I see my future and what I can be, my potential. I have to live in there if I’m going to make it where I want to make it.”
Crews arrived at West Side with limited basketball experience. He said he began playing the sport when he was 11 years old, but that didn’t last long.
“I was working hard,” Crews said. “I was heavy. I was losing weight, but I gave up. So I stopped playing basketball. I never really played a lot of basketball.”
Crews gave it another try in middle school. But he played only sporadically as a 6-6, 245-pounder.
“When we first got him, he was a wide body,” Buggs said. “We figured he would grow. Then he lost so much weight. He couldn’t hold any of it. He was weak and uncoordinated. He just wasn’t ready to play last year.
“His freshman year was his first time really playing organized basketball. He played a little bit in middle school, but not very much. He was really behind, really trying to learn. He reminds me of Mason Nicholson, a kid I had before who started a little later. Everything was really new and everything was fast-paced. He couldn’t catch up to it. But now over time, he’s finally starting to pick it up.”
Crews could continue on that path. The Cougars have numerous players in college, including a pair of big men, 2021 graduate Nicholson and 2022 graduate Jalen Washington, who was an elite recruit out of high school. They’re teammates at Vanderbilt.
“Jalen and Mason come back every winter, every summer,” Buggs said. “I know people were talking to him, ‘Go here.’ But he stuck it out, and it came to fruition. He realized, ‘My future is here.’ It gave him hope that ‘If I work hard, I’ll be where they are.’ He’s turned it around. He’s going to be there.”
Indeed, Crews has lofty aspirations.
“I want to play high-major Division I basketball,” he said. “But I also know I messed up some opportunities when I was younger. I can still make it, and I would do anything to make it to that level. But if I have to go juco or DII, I’ll still work to play at that high level.
“I want to take care of my parents, my family, give back to the program and the community. I want to be able to say, ‘I went here, listened to the coaches and it all worked out.’ I want to be a real example and just somebody they can look up to.”
In a way, Crews has already become an example for West Side.
“When he didn’t get what he wanted right away, he didn’t all of a sudden just give up,” Buggs said. “He stuck with it. He buckled down and got better. He got stronger and more coordinated. He trusted us coaches. There were some hard conversations at times, but he just kept working hard and sticking with it, and this could be a breakout year for him. His best basketball is in front of him, for sure.
“I’m more proud of him than I’ve been in a long time for a basketball player. He really signifies what a player should be now. Wait your turn, work hard, and then when it comes to you and you get success, you’ll be more humble. That’s what I really like about him. I know he’s going to have great success in the future, and I’m just happy that I know when he has it, he’ll have a lot of humility because he knows where he came from.”
Crews has impressed West Side senior guard Julian Holmes too.
“He’s come a long way,” Holmes said. “When I first walked into the gym with Tyler, I didn’t know. I just saw a big, tall dude walking around. But he came in, it was hard for him at first, emotional. He was a kid that barely played basketball, trying to develop. But the development process, I’ve seen him put in the work, and I really admire the effort he’s put in to now being able to be a big star on our team.”
Crews has big plans for the Cougars, who haven’t won a sectional title since 2021, when they advanced to semistate and lost in overtime to eventual Class 4A state champion Carmel.
“It’s just continuing to learn and develop so we can go downstate and win,” Crews said. “Everyone is starting to understand what they need to do as a basketball player. Everyone is humble. Everyone is hardworking on the court and in the classroom. We have trust, leaders, accountability, integrity in everything we do.
“All of these past years, we haven’t won anything. We haven’t cut a net yet. But this year, it really means something. It’s really a statement for the team. I just want to win for this team. The coaches, everything they do, all the decisions they make for us, I want to win for them. I want to win for my brothers. I want to win for West Side. Not for the titles, but for the school.”
