Pacific Index

Luke Winkler breaking records left and right

   Great basketball players to an average fan are often pictured as the athletes who are excellent at scoring. Naturally, people will also begin to imagine defensive dominance or athletes who are bullies in the paint. However, one of the most underrated and underappreciated aspects of the game has been the ability to pass the ball around effectively; players who value distributing the ball will often pass up an opportunity to score themselves and will scan the court to find a teammate with a better chance in front of them. But when you find a player who both breaks the school’s all-time assists record while also being a top-four scorer for the team for all four years of his eligibility, you have a pretty special talent on your hands. 

   Luke Winkler is a senior guard from Portland. His two older brothers, who he looks up to, inspired him to begin playing basketball competitively ever since second grade. Watching them hoop when he was younger really drove him to pursue the sport competitively. His brothers got him interested in basketball, but there was just something different about this sport that got him hooked. “There is an up and down to it. Really like a roller coaster of having good games and having a team with a lot of chemistry where things are working well, and maybe the next season with the same group you kind of struggle to figure out. Figuring out the puzzle of finding that success with each new team is addicting,” Winkler claims.

   For the past four years, Winkler has been a very significant piece of the Pacific men’s basketball team. He currently holds the school’s all-time assist record of 552 assists, while also having a very impressive 1,179 total career points, and 556 career rebounds. But out of all his accolades, the most impressive must be leading his team to the playoffs (last season) for the first time in over twenty years. “It was pretty special,” Winkler stated. “I don’t even know if I knew at the moment how good that felt, just coming off of the year we had the previous year, it was not the best we had played, and I knew I could contribute more than I had.” That season Winkler earned first-team All-Conference honors while also finishing first on the team in both points and assists. 

   This year, Winkler’s goal was to play like they had been there before. He doesn’t want his team to become too distracted by the expectations of last year, and he wants them to stay focused on what is left ahead of them. “Especially now, getting rid of the expectations we have for each other, and what we have for the team. I mean it hadn’t been done in a really long time so it can feel like a lot of weight to live up to that again or even exceed that the next year,” Winkler expressed. “What we are dealing with a lot is taking the pressure off of ourselves and just having fun”.

   Over his time at Pacific, Winkler has achieved a lot on the court. But he’s also helped change the culture around the basketball team. “Our freshman year we would show up to practice and watch film and that was about it. There wasn’t a lot of work being done on the court outside of practice time,” Winkler recalled. “Creating that culture of getting in the gym multiple times a week with your team and staying after practice.” Now that cultural change is becoming more evident on the court, with much more success over the last couple years. “We have a lot of guys staying after practice to get shots up, which didn’t happen before,” explained Winkler.

   The Boxers currently stand at 10-10 with five games remaining. With a strong mindset that focuses on the present, the team looks to finish the year strong.