By David Carducci
Record-Courier staff writer
Tyree Evans' dream has been delayed long enough.
Three years after he was rated among the top high-school seniors in the country, Evans will finally make his Division I college basketball debut tonight when he pulls on his new Kent State jersey and steps out on the M.A.C. Center floor for the Golden Flashes' game with visiting UNC Greensboro.
"I can't stop smiling," Evans said. "It's finally here."
The stories of the off-the-court problems and the legal troubles that derailed Evans on his road to college careers at Cincinnati and Maryland have been told and re-told to death in the media ever since his high school days in Richmond, Va.
Type his name into a Google search, and you can find them all. Some of the accounts are true. Some may have been blown out of proportion or rely on half-truths.
Evans admits to making some bad choices in his youth. He admits to spending too much time with hangers-on who wanted a piece of his growing stardom. As is always the case, many of those "friends" didn't have his best interest at heart.
"I wish I had done some things differently, and I wish some things didn't happen," Evans said. "But everything that I've been through has made me a more mature person right now. I always have my head on a swivel now, and I think before everything I do. ... If I hadn't been through some of those things, I might still be a little immature and not careful enough. Everything that happened when I was a teen has made me a lot wiser."
At the age of 23, Evans has managed to put his past behind him. He enjoyed a trouble-free season at Motlow Community College in Tennessee last year, and now he hopes Kent State fans will decide to judge him on his on-and-off-the-court actions since arriving in Kent in August.
By all accounts, he has been nothing but a solid citizen in that time.
"Everyone on campus, from his academic advisors to his professors, to campus workers and people in the athletic department, all they say is how much they like Tyree," said KSU head coach Geno Ford. "The people who take two minutes to talk to him or get to know him, they all end up extremely impressed with his maturity."
Evans sense of responsibility was on display in his Kent State classrooms during a first semester when he earned a 3.35 grade-point average.
"That's the best GPA I've ever had, by far," Evans boasted. "And it feels really good. It feels like I really accomplished something, because I've always had 2.0s or 2.1s. When I told a few family members about my grades, they didn't believe me."
Evans had a far more difficult time explaining to friends and family back in Virginia why his Division I career would be delayed another month back in November. As a junior-college transfer, he didn't have enough credit hours to qualify for degree progress under NCAA rules. That forced him to sit out the Flashes' first nine games until first-semester grades became official on Wednesday.
"I'd get a phone call from somebody back home, and they'd say "I'm on the Internet, and I don't understand. What does DNP mean?,' " said Evans. Of course, DNP on a box score stands for Did Not Play. "They'd say, "what are you, hurt?' I'd tell them no, it's academic. They'd ask "what, you have bad grades?' I'd say no, it's just NCAA rules. ... But now the wait is over."
Despite arriving in Kent with a reputation as a big-time scorer and his status as the star of every team he has ever played on, Evans is eager to just fit in with his new teammates. The 6-foot-3 wing will come off the bench as a backup to Al Fisher at shooting guard and to Chris Singletary at small forward beginning tonight.
"He won't have any trouble fitting in," said Ford. "Tyree is as well liked by his teammates as anyone on our roster. When you have petty chemistry issues, it is because people genuinely don't like each other. The guys like Tyree. They know he plays hard. They respect his game. They know he is a scorer, but he is also not a selfish guy."
More than just scoring, Evans is eager to help the Flashes where they need it the most " on the defensive end of the floor.
KSU (4-5) is allowing 72.3 points per game so far this season. Of the Mid-American Conference's 12 teams, only Northern Illinois surrenders more points (74.8).
"When people see me out there, I want their first thought to be, "man, he really works his butt off on defense,' " said Evans.
He knows some of those fans in the M.A.C. Center are skeptical of Kent State's decision to take a chance on him. He also knows there are still members of the media who eager to re-hash all of the stories from his past.
"I'd ask them, what about the guys that don't make it that you don't have a reason to write about?" said KSU assistant coach Bobby Steinburg, who was Evans' coach at Motlow last season and remains one of his biggest supporters. "Tyree is still living. He's still kicking. He may have taken a long, long path to get to where he wanted to go, but there are so many guys from backgrounds like his who didn't get this far."
For those in his new Kent State family who are eager to see him make the most of his new opportunity, Evans has one message:
"Thank you," he said. "I thank (KSU athletic director) Laing Kennedy, coach Ford, all of the Kent State alumni and fans. Everyone who is giving me the opportunity to prove myself, both as a person and a player."