Amie Just – Mar 22, 2024 – Lincoln Journal Star

C.J. Wilcher bowed his head.

With his eyes closed and his arms crossed behind his back, he prayed. While the thousands of people in Pinnacle Bank Arena watched him share his senior day testimonial on the video board, Wilcher reflected.

I’ve been through a lot with all my ups and downs. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’m not supposed to be where I’m at right now, but this is where I’m supposed to be.

For Wilcher, this is home. One of them, anyway. He’s proud to be a kid from Plainfield, New Jersey, but his time in Lincoln is the longest he’s ever stayed in one spot, he says.

For Wilcher, this place means the world. The people. The love. The support. It’s beyond that, too. This is where he’s grown. As a person. As a basketball player. As a leader. As a disciple of Christ. All of it, that’s why he remains on this year’s roster.

“I came back in faith, honestly,” Wilcher told the Journal Star. “I kinda knew I wasn’t gonna start, if I’m being honest with you, coming into this year. Just because of how it just went and just the business of the game of basketball. But I came back all in faith.

“There’s something here for me.”

But it hasn’t come easy.

Nebraska’s C.J. Wilcher (0) is shown before the game against Rutgers on March 3 at Pinnacle Bank Arena.KATY COWELL, Journal Star file photo

As one of the most-tenured players on Fred Hoiberg’s roster, Wilcher came to Nebraska as “a child” — defensive, at times, not accepting coaching. Now, he’s transformed into a joyful, confident, mature leader who is an integral piece on this Nebraska team that has the Huskers in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade.

Through his growth, there have been times of struggle and times of great success.

This season — one that may or may not be his final year at Nebraska — he’s flourished and he’s been flummoxed. There were games this season where he looked like he was the no-brainer choice for the Big Ten’s Sixth Man of the Year. There have been others where his point total matched his jersey number of No. 0.

Through it all, Wilcher approaches it all with a vastly different outlook than he previously did.

“There’s a level of grace you gotta be able to give yourself, too, for you to be able to truly grow,” Wilcher said. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out now.

“I turned to God this year. Now, I think my faith plays a big role in how I play basketball, how I live my life. I still have tons and tons and tons of work to do, but I’m excited to do it in the light of the Lord.”

Nebraska’s C.J. Wilcher (0) celebrates after hitting a 3-pointer in the first half at Pinnacle Bank Arena on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024.KENNETH FERRIERA, Journal Star

C.J. Wilcher wanted an opportunity.

His dream? College basketball at the highest level. That’s how he landed here. His first pit stop out of Roselle Catholic was merely that, a pit stop — one truncated season at Xavier with minimal minutes until the final four games.

“I was still green,” Wilcher admits now. “I didn’t have any, like, I guess you could say guidance, before coming here. ​​I had great vets at Xavier, but it was a short season. You got a quarter of what they experienced, really, playing in college.”

Because of that, Wilcher considers the 2021-22 season to be his actual freshman season. He started to see it connect. By the year’s end, he led the Huskers in 3-pointers and 3-point percentage.

But that version of C.J., as he says, was “a child.”

What did he mean by that?

“Maybe what C.J. is alluding to there is, if you got on him, there was a little bit of a defense mechanism,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg told the Journal Star. “When you have a leader that accepts constructive criticism, or that accepts coaching, then everybody else is gonna fall in line. In the past, he fought it a little bit. But not one time this year has he ever tried to argue or snap back.”

That first season, Wilcher says, was “a bit hectic.”

Wins were hard to come by. On a team full of talent — namely Bryce McGowens, Trey McGowens and Alonzo Verge Jr. — Nebraska only managed to celebrate 10 victories that season. Wilcher, seeing action in all 32 games, averaged 8.1 points and 2.3 rebounds per game as NU’s sixth man, but he didn’t receive a lot of leadership lessons on a team that was, at its best, disjointed.

“Me being here, that was my freshman year,” Wilcher said. “I was super green in terms of this level and the things that come with it. Even my teammates, I love those guys that were on that team, but I wouldn’t necessarily say they were the best of vets — no disrespect to them — just in terms of the trajectory of our program now.”

The 2022-23 campaign changed everything. Hoiberg brought in culture-changing transfers in Sam Griesel, Emmanuel Bandoumel and Juwan Gary — who helped Nebraska get to .500 for the first time since Hoiberg was hired.

But while hope was growing around the program for what could be, Wilcher struggled. He expected his trajectory to grow from his first year to his second. That isn’t what happened.

After starting the first 17 games of the season, Wilcher returned to coming off the bench. His production slipped — not to a “bad” level by any means, but down.

For example, with Griesel out due to illness at Indiana, Wilcher took the reins and scored a season-high 22 points. In the following game, the one against Purdue where he was infamously whistled for a foul he did not commit, he went scoreless for the first time all season.

“I lost my confidence,” Wilcher said. “I don’t know how I got through it. Honestly, it was tough, like touuuuugh. I lost who I was. Like, I forgot who I am and what got me here. And then, ultimately, I just lost how I feel about myself as a person outside of basketball.”

The feeling crept over him gradually. He gave too much power to external things, becoming superstitious out of nowhere. His thoughts spiraled. His joyful spirit wavered, as did his typical exuberant energy. His anxiety morphed into constant self-doubt, leaving him on pins and needles.

He, after an eight-game starting hiatus, was thrust back into the starting lineup on Valentine’s Day — sinking five 3-pointers, the most of his career, at Rutgers. He finished the season back in the starting rotation, helping Nebraska climb out of a dark spot after losing Bandoumel and Juwan Gary to season-ending injuries.

“The two big road wins at Rutgers and Iowa, finishing the season on a high note probably helped him because he went through, really, two separate seasons last year,” Hoiberg said. “He did not shoot the ball well early and then he was one of the better shooters in the league the last six weeks of the season.”

It did help, but not to the level where Wilcher felt like himself again.

That didn’t come until he poured himself into his faith.

C.J. Wilcher is no stranger to religion.

His father, Sergio Wilcher, is a pastor’s kid. His mother, Kimberly Wilcher, was raised in the church; her father and stepmother worked in a church. C.J. himself attended Roselle Catholic and St. Benedict’s Prep in New Jersey for high school, but because of the demands of youth sports, Sunday church services took a backseat.

Wilcher always believed in God, but he never really knew how to. He would pray at night before bedtime, but he wouldn’t call that faith — not now, anyway.

“I always thought, ‘I gotta work hard and do well and God’s gonna bless these things.’ I guess, I thought he was like a genie,” Wilcher said. “And now I realize he’s interpersonal. He wants to have a relationship with me.”

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Before the 2022-23 season, Wilcher felt what he calls “heart tugs” — calling him to read the Bible. He can’t explain it. He’d never felt that before. He’d never expressed an interest in that before, but afterward, the TikTok algorithm began showing him videos of people breaking down different Bible verses.

“I never was like, ‘Oh, I gotta go read. I want to go read,’” Wilcher said. “That was never a thing. I started texting people, ‘What’s the best version of the Bible I should get?’ But I never got too deep into it.”

One day, a little green Psalms and Proverbs Bible appeared out of nowhere in Nebraska’s locker room at Hendricks. No one interviewed for this story has any idea where it came from. Wilcher took it. He began reading it and taking notes in the margins.

But then the season began and Wilcher fell back into his old habits.

“Things weren’t necessarily going the way I wanted to or intended them to or expected them to,” Wilcher said. “I just kind of fell back into trying to do things my way. Or what I just knew, right? Honestly, not even necessarily just doing it my way because it’s my way, but just what I thought was right. And it ended up being wrong.

“So at the end of the season, I still had those heart tugs. I felt lost. I didn’t know who I was, like how I could move from this point on. I just leaned into God, man.”

Wilcher went all-in.

In the weight room last spring, he vocalized an interest in learning about baptism and Cale Jacobsen chimed in. The two started a one-on-one Bible study, reading through Mark and the meaning of the sacrament.

“You could see the truth sitting in his heart and you could see the fruit that came out of it,” Jacobsen told the Journal Star. “It pushed me as a believer to just see how on fire he was.”

Through connections he made through his previous NIL deals, Wilcher found his church: Crossroads Church on North 40th and Superior streets. He’s been attending services there for about a year. Unlike CityLight, Crossroads isn’t primarily a college-aged congregation, but rather it’s a neighborhood church full of parishioners of a variety of ages.

“Everybody’s so loving, caring, wants to have a conversation with you,” Wilcher said. “It’s great to be a part of that and being such an inviting community to where they feel good to where other people I bring feel comfortable being there.”

It’s not just his teammates who feel comfortable there.

He does, too — so much so that he has reclaimed his name, his full name, in that building.

At basketball, he’s C.J.

At church, he’s Caleb.

Why?

“I’m learning to love myself. I always hated my name growing up,” Wilcher said. “Caleb Jefferson Wilcher. It sounds like a president. It sounds like a sophisticated old man.

“It’s me professing my faith to the world in those settings. Like, how could I not love myself and love who God named me to be? Caleb’s a pretty dope name. I started going by Caleb at church and everyone at church calls me Caleb because I’ve learned to accept that with myself and love that part of myself.”

Oct. 22, 2023. That’s the day Wilcher circled as the day that changed his life — following through on his initial curiosity about baptism and committing his life to Christ.

Four Huskers players were at Crossroads that day — Jamarques Lawrence, Brice Williams, Eli Rice and Jacobsen — and a staffer, recruiting coordinator Padyn Borders.

Lawrence, Williams, Rice and Borders watched from the pews, while Wilcher invited Jacobsen to stand on the stage with him — something Wilcher surprised Jacobsen with.

“Cale was a big part of my journey,” Wilcher said as to why he invited Jacobsen onto the stage. “Man, Cale was such a light.”

Jacobsen could tell that Wilcher was nervous. He knew how important this day was.

With all eyes on Crossroads pastor Sean Swihart, he dunked Wilcher into the baptismal pool. Wilcher didn’t immediately feel anything. But in the moments after he walked away and gave Jacobsen a sopping wet hug, Wilcher broke down crying — a storm of emotions crashing over him as he felt an immense sense of gratitude for all that had led him here.

Thank you, God. You have had your hand on my life in countless ways. You’re why I have the siblings I do. You’re why I have the parents I do. My cousins. My teammates. All the people you’ve put in my life, thank you, God. You’re why I went from being that little, short, fat kid in Plainfield, New Jersey, who no one thought was capable of anything to being a strong, smart young man living out his basketball dreams in Lincoln, Nebraska. Thank you.

“I’ve never sat and appreciated how far I’ve come,” Wilcher said. “How far God has taken me. The people he’s put in my life, to make me who I am. I was just super appreciative.”

My cmnt: Click the link to LJS above to read the rest of this piece.