• Head Coach Tyler Geving will be a guest every Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. on The Dave Smith Show on 750 AM The Game
Early into the Viking's 2011-12 men's basketball season, senior forward
Chehales Tapscott is the Big Sky Conference's second leading rebounder (9.5 per game) and ninth-leading scorer (14.0 per game). He also has a team-high nine blocked shots.
In addition, he muscled home an short jump shot in the lane with four seconds left to provide the winning margin in the Vikings come-from-behind 66-65 win over Seattle University.
In short, he was performing up to second-year Head Coach
Tyler Geving's expectations when Geving went to see him as a high school senior at Century High School in Hillsboro.
“His coach (Scott Keller) called and said he had someone we should look at, someone who was flying under the radar of other Division 1 programs. It was pretty evident that he'd be a great player at this level,” recalled Geving, who was recruiting coordinator and an assistant coach under then-PSU Head Coach Ken Bone.
Geving liked what he saw in Tapscott, who twice led his Century team to the league championship. “I told Coach Bone he should go see him and he came back impressed. He was going to come to PSU out of high school.”
Academics forced a two-year side trip to Clackamas Community College (CCC), where Tapscott continued his eye-popping performances. He led Clackamas to a pair of conference titles (his team was 58-4 during Tapscott's tenure) and was named league South Division Player of the Year as a sophomore averaging 25.5 points and 13.5 rebounds per game.
And, while he still would like a post-college career in basketball, that side trip taught him a major lesson about priorities.
“I learned that academics are more important than basketball. That's what I learned in junior college,” he said. And, he's proud that he carried a 3.2 GPA during his final year there and has a B average at PSU.
Tapscott didn't begin playing basketball until his freshman year at Century. He tried football in grade school but decided “it was too cold”.
His interest in the sport was piqued by watching Michael Jordan. “I wanted to be just like him. I liked to watch him play. And it helped that it turned out that I was good at basketball.”
By “good” he means “I wasn't the best scorer, but I could rebound,” he said. Tapscott averaged 13 rebounds per game as a 6-foot high school freshman—he grew four inches during high school, but avoided the “clumsies” that growth spurts can cause.
During that first year, Century Coach Keller told him he had the potential to be an all-league player at the NCAA Division 1 level (“I said OK”).
In high school, “our coaches taught me everything…how to post up, to shoot, taught me the fundamentals of basketball and as I got smarter, I got better,” he said.
And, he thinks his biggest attribute is that basketball IQ.
“Somehow, you learn to be in the right place at the right time (especially for rebounds). You make the right passes. You've watched the game so much that you begin to see patterns,” he said.
Geving said he “takes no credit for that (Tapscott's rebounding). He's just one of those guys who have a knack for getting after the ball. He works hard. Some stuff you can't teach… a lot is just work ethic, he has a determination to get the ball.”
While most players like scoring best, Tapscott's favorite part of basketball is rebounding.
“I just enjoy fighting and competing for the ball. My dad (Lawrence—a Vietnam War Vet who raised Tapscott and his sisters Latoya, 22 and Letisha, 31 as a single parent) used to get at me and say 'no matter what others are doing, just get the ball'. It's fun doing that,” he said.
Between rebounding and his scoring, Tapscott had a lot of options when he left CCC. He heard from all the Big Sky Conference schools, Pepperdine, Cal State Fullerton, Iowa and Nebraska as his time there was winding down. He stuck with PSU because “even when I went to community college, Coach Geving said 'OK, when your two years at Clackamas are finished, we still want you'.”
He found Division 1 basketball to be “faster, with strong and smarter athletes. It takes a whole lot of hard work.”
But, Geving said he's fitting right in at this level.
“He's a winner. He's competitive…obviously he's a great rebounder. But, he's also one of our most skilled offensive players and can do anything you ask of him…a very versatile player,” said Geving.
A great thing, added Geving, “is that I think there's a lot more to his game. Although he hasn't really showed it yet, he's improved his perimeter game. He can get better. There's so much more to his game. He can take the team on his back.”
Tapscott said he's happy with his stage of development. “I have a lot of room for development, to get better, but I'm happy where I am now,” he said and believes his biggest areas for improvement are body strength, ball handling and outside shooting.
As to his game-winning shot against Seattle, he prefers to think of the game as a team win, rather than a Tapscott win.
Although he reluctantly agreed that it was a special moment for him, “you're really just playing as hard as you can, just doing the best you can. That's what's special about our team. We don't give up. We're all winners. We had a bitter taste in our mouths last season. It's all about winning this season.”
After basketball, Tapscott wants to be a guidance counselor.
“I've always wanted to help out teenage kids who live in the hood. I was privileged to have a father who kept me away from drugs and alcohol. He made me who I am 100 percent,” said Tapscott.
This term, he's enjoying a creative writing class and recently wrote an essay about (what else?) a comparison between Lebron James and Kobe Bryant.
One more thing about Tapscott is his overall attitude, said Geving. “He has a good attitude and that obviously helps. There are a lot of great athletes who don't have a great attitude. He's a great kid. He's always got a smile on his face. People get to know him and comment on how big his heart is. People see him play and say he looks like a nice person, and he is. He's a good person.”
