It was classic past-meets-present — only without the actual meeting.

Evan Eschmeyer, Northwestern’s last great center, was in town for the Illinois game Saturday and afterward he offered his opinion on the team’s current big man, Mike Thompson.

Eschmeyer, who graduated from NU in 1999 and played four seasons in the NBA, said Thompson has all the tools to be a great player in the Big Ten. But he noted Thompson may need more time to get back into the swing of things.

“I think when you haven’t done something in a while and you really want to do well, the natural tendency is to rush things, and that’s just human nature,” Eschmeyer said. “And as he gets more comfortable and starts to feel more at home out there, you’ll see him settle into a rhythm that will be very productive.”

Eschmeyer said it took him 10 games in college before he felt comfortable.

“I was horrible before that and a lot worse (than Thompson),” he said.

Through his first 10 games as a freshman in the 1995-96 season, Eschmeyer averaged just 4.5 points. But then he found his groove and scored in double-figures in the next five games — all against Big Ten opponents — and finished the season averaging nine points and 6.6 rebounds.

Thompson is averaging 11.9 points and a team-leading 5.3 rebounds, but he’s second on the team with 2.6 turnovers per game. Faced with double teams in the last two games, Thompson has turned in sub-par performances.

Eschmeyer, who said he would like to meet Thompson sometime, said he would just tell him to relax.

“That will take care of a lot of issues,” Eschmeyer said. “He’s continuing to work hard and going at it everyday to improve, but he needs to just realize that it’s going to be a process that he’s going to have to go through.”

Thompson has recognized adjustments and improvements will come. Criticized for his poor free throw shooting earlier this year, he made a concerted effort to silence the critics. As a result, he’s shot better than his free throw percentage in each of the last four games.

Thompson’s percentage is still 46.4 percent, but he said he isn’t worried.

“It’s improving right now,” he said. “It’s not going to change overnight. I’m getting better every day with it — it’s shown it’s getting better.”

But with only 10 games under his belt, Thompson’s development is still ongoing. Against Illinois, Thompson scored just seven points while committing four fouls. On Jan. 12 against Michigan, he scored 12 points but shot 4 of 13, and threw up a couple of wild shots that had coach Bill Carmody shaking his head.

On one occasion, Thompson used his left hand to scoop up a shot that caromed off the backboard, nowhere close to the rim.

“He’s just anxious to help us win, so when he gets the ball down there he’s thinking, ‘This is what I can do and this is how I do it,'” Carmody said. “Guys usually resort to what they think is their strength, but right now teams are keying on him, and so it’s harder than normal.”

Carmody said he noticed while watching Saturday’s game tape that Thompson’s passes often created open 3-point looks for his teammates. He just needs to find that balance between shooting and passing, Carmody said.

“When he passes, he passes to the right guy every time,” Carmody said. “It’s just that sometimes he’s taken some tough shots when he should have passed it out.”

Reach Anthony Tao at [email protected].