Freshman Charles Popielarz is in his first year with RedHawks basketball. He's our MBB player of the week.

Hammond, Indiana.

My dad got me into it when I was five years old

What separates basketball from other sports?

Just the excitement. I've been playing it since I was young. I tried playing other sports, but I really like basketball. It's a thinking game, and I'm a thinker. I like to play hard.

I've never been the tallest player, or the most athletic player, but I like to play hard.

Communication and you have to be able to talk to everybody on the team. You can't be talking behind anybody's back. You have to be friends with everybody, basically.

We do, we have really good chemistry. Everybody is friends with everybody. I think we're a really good team, we just don't finish sometimes and we don't get the right breaks.

Criminal justice

My dad's a cop and my mom is a paralegal. It just seems like a fun job.

Play hard, even if you're not the most athletic or tallest guy out there you have to do whatever to win.