BOISE, Idaho — Jase Coburn has heard the noise. He understands the narratives around college basketball.
Players are selfish. Everyone is in it for themselves. One spat of adversity; players of all different abilities are gone. They are hitting the portal and moseying on down the road.
It’s all about money. Teamwork and chemistry pale in comparison to fat NIL checks and star-rated recruits.
Coburn knows all of that is a part of modern-day college basketball, at least from a narrative standpoint. But Portland State’s fifth-year head basketball coach also is certain of the answer to the question he gets asked most often: do players still like to be coached?
“I get asked that all the time,” Coburn said. “People always ask around college basketball, ‘Do guys like to be coached?’ And I always answer, ‘Ours do.’ I can’t speak to other teams but our players love to be coached.
“That’s what makes culture. That’s what reveals leadership. We have great culture and great leadership. That carries over to the way we carry ourselves off the floor. That’s why I get emails about how respectful and great our team was in an airport or in a plane or in a hotel or at a restaurant.
“The are great students. That’s why we had the highest GPA Portland State has ever had. When you add all of that together, it’s a formula for championships.”
And that’s what Portland State has done. In an era where half (or more) of any given mid-major team’s roster turns over every single off-season, Portland State has captured continuity. The Vikings returned seven lettermen and two more players coming off of redshirt seasons entering this year.
Three of those players — old-school senior forward Terri Miller Jr., rim-running shot blocker Tre’Vaughan Minot and explosive go-go combo guard Jaylin Henderson — are all-league players who returned for their senior seasons.
Those returns set expectations high for Coburn’s squad. The Vikings have leaned into those expectations. In a conference where the margin of victory has been razor-thin all season, PSU went wire to wire. The Viks have never been in any place but first place, even with a three-game skid down the stretch that meant Portland State didn’t sew up the outright league title until last Monday.
“We were in first place wire to wire,” Coburn said. “I don’t think we were ever in second place the whole conference season. It’s probably one of the most resilient groups I’ve ever coached. We’ve been resilient in games. We’ve been resilient after losses. And then we lost three games down the stretch and everything ended up working out perfectly.”
By perfectly, Coburn meant in the way that the storybook sage continued writing itself. Coburn’s squad had a chance to clinch the outright Big Sky championship on a night when Montana State got boat raced by Idaho State (91-76) in Pocatello and Montana laid an egg at Weber State (losing 92-72). A PSU home win over Eastern Washington would’ve given PSU the league title with three league games to play.
Instead, the Vikings lost 67-55 at home to EWU. Portland State then could’ve put an exclamation point on the league title by winning at Montana State (an 84-69 loss in Bozeman) or at Montana (a 74-68 loss in Missoula) by beating either of the two most recent league tournament champions in the two most hostile environments in the Big Sky.
So entering last Monday, with Montana State already securing its 12th conference with by beating Northern Arizona 76-65 in Flagstaff, the Vikings knew they had to win to avoid sharing the title.
Portland State put on a clinic, running Weber State off the floor in a 84-60 statement victory to sew up the program’s first league championship since Ken Bone led the Vikings to their second straight league title in 2009.
“We couldn’t have wrote a better story for us to come home and do it on Senior Night, in front of our fans who have been here,” Coburn said. “I couldn’t be more proud to do it in front of our people. It ended up working out perfectly. Sometimes, it’s just meant to be that way.”
The irony here is that Portland State was one of the most transfer-heavy programs in the Big Sky Conference between Bone leading the Vikings to the NCAA Tournament back to back seasons in 2008 and 2009 and when the open transfers became part of the status quo in Division I hoops a few years ago. So when the reality of constant roster turnover hit the rest of the Big Sky, it seemed like old hat at PSU.
Ty Geving was a former junior college player and head coach who served as Bone’s head assistant form 2005-2009. When he took over as the head coach at PSU after Bone left for Washington State, Geving kept the Vikings right around .500 and right around the middle of the conference during his eight seasons at the helm with a variety stud transfers, including Jamie Jones (first-team all-league in 2010), Chehales Tapscott (a JC transfer who was first-team all-league in 2012) and Cameron Forte, a former Georgia transfer who was second-team all-league in 2016.
When Geving stepped down, enter Barrett Peery, a junior college wizard who won 86.2 percent of his games between his stops at Southern Idaho and Indian Hills with forays as an assistant at Utah, Arizona State and Santa Clara in between. Peery led Portland State to its first 20-win season since Bone’s final two teams won 23 games in consecutive years behind the strong play of Brandon Hollins and Bryce Canda, a couple of junior college players that helped spearhead Peery’s vicious full court trap.
The Vikings won 11 Big Sky games in 2019 and 12 more the following year behind the stellar play of Holland Woods, a slick guard who came to Portland from the high school ranks. But when Woods transferred to Arizona State, Beery could see the writing on the wall. He took a job as an assistant at Texas Tech, opening the door for Coburn.
When the whirling merry-go round that has become men’s college hoops started whirring, Coburn was completely unphased. He’d lived his whole adult life in the junior college world. He played at MiraCosta College and coached at Phoenix JC and Howard JC (TX) before joining Geving’s staff at PSU in 2013.
Coburn took elements from Geving and Peery while also keeping his own principles of team building at the forefront.
“My time here at Portland State, we’ve turned the roster over a lot, and that’s one thing we have been really good at is getting guys and getting the chemistry to be right in a short, quick amount of time,” said Coburn, before last season’s Big Sky Tournament. “I think that’s one advantage that we’ve had against the other programs in the league.
“We’ve never had four and five year guys here. We’ve had a bunch of transfers and JuCo guys. That’s just kind of what I’m used to. I’m used to our roster turning over and that’s one thing I’m really good at is a group of guys getting to be able to function on the same page and get to know each other really quickly.”
Minot came to Portland State as a 6-foot-10 transfer from South Carolina. Miller joined the Vikings after a season at Louisiana Tech and two prior years at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California. Henderson also came to PSU from Louisiana Tech after spending time at Seward County Community College in Kansas.
The difference, though, coming into this season, is that those players were not new to Coburn or Portland State’s high-octane, ball-pressuring, intense system.
Coburn returned seven players from last year’s 19-win team that exited the Big Sky tournament abruptly after the third-seeded Vikings lost 80-70 to Idaho in their first game. That team also added Keyon Kensie Jr., a 6-foot-8 wing transfer from San Diego who’s been one of the top newcomers in the conference this season.
“I feel like Keyon has been an all-conference level player,” Coburn said. “There’s not very many guys walking around in the Big Sky who are 6-8 and that athletic and can score.”
The expectations were high both internally and externally. Portland State was picked second in the preseason polls by both the coaches and the media. Defending champion Montana was picked first.
“They returned the best three players,” said Travis DeCuire, the league’s Coach of the Year last season after leading Montana to the NCAA Tournament for the third time under his guidance and the 13th time overall . “There’s no question those three were their best three players last year. They had one of the best defenses in the country last year and they returned their two best defenders (Miller, Henderson).
“They were able to continue to play the exact same way they played last year. They had no changes made. Even though they brought in a couple of new bodies, those guys just filled the roles to the guys who left. They moved Jaylin Henderson and increased his usage. They really didn’t have to change the way they played. If you don’t have to make changes, you are going to be more consistent.”
Playing the same way is one thing. But Henderson, an explosive, high-flying swing man, seamlessly made the transition from playing off the ball to playing as PSU’s starting point guard has been another. He played more than 37 minutes a game, scoring 17.9 points per content on the way to earning first-team All-Big Sky honors.
“He’s done a tremendous job,” Coburn said. “He’s been able to find guys, make the right reads. And he’s one of the most athletic guys in college basketball. He makes our engine go. He’s a great defender and can create things with defense. He can get us out in transition. I couldn’t be more proud of his evolution as a basketball player.”
Miller was the second-leading scorer in the conference (19 points per game) and Henderson was fifth. But it’s PSU’s league-leading defense that set the tone for the third Big Sky championship in school history.
“They really guard the basketball,” Montana State head coach Matt Logie said. “It starts with their ball pressure and their speed on the perimeter. If you are able to get past that component, having the Defensive Player of the Year (Minot) at the rim behind you doesn’t hurt you either. They have a great formula. They have really created the identity and they know who they are, and that’s what it’s all about.”
Minot is one of the best shot blockers in the conference. But it’s all the rest of his defensive acumen that makes him the two-time Defensive Player of the Year in the Big Sky.
“When people talk about what they want their big guys to do, he does everything you want a big guy to do,” Coburn said. “He guards the paint. He protects the rim. He’s great in ball screen coverage. There’s a lot of things that he really does for us that allows us to have a really good defense. He is an eraser. He makes up for people’s mistakes. He’s a great communicator. He does everything defensively you would want a big guy to do.”
You take Henderson’s high motor, Minot’s rim protection and Kensie’s athleticism and that’s enough to have a competitive Big Sky team. Last season, that core helped PSU win 11 Big Sky games and finish in third place.
Miller’s memorable senior season has been the factor that has put PSU over the top. The Vikings have long been one of the best defensive teams in the conference. Pairing that with a player who can dominate a game in the half-court has elevated the Viks.
Miller shot 51 percent from the floor and nearly 40 percent from the 3-point line. The 6-foot-9 averaged 19 points per game, including 19.6 per game in conference play. He scored more than 22 points in nine conference games and would’ve won the league scoring title if not for scoring just two points against the Griz in Missoula because he got ejected for a flagrant foul early in the second half.
“When he steps on the basketball court, there’s nothing Terri can’t do,” Coburn said. “He’s been facing double team, triple teams all year long. To be able to have the individual success he’s had all year long despite people doubling and triple teaming him, that’s been pretty amazing. There’s nothing on the basketball court that Terri can’t do and he knows that. He’s been a matchup nightmare.”
Ever since the Big Sky moved to a neutral site tournament in 2015-2016, you can always hear the scuttle.
“Nobody wants to play Portland State” they say. “That style is so hard to prepare for on short notice,” you hear.
Coburn led PSU to the semifinals with two victories his first season in 2022. But the Vikings have gone one and done each of the last three tournaments.
Portland State’s next win will be its 20th. It will also vault the Vikings into the Final Four of the Big Sky Tourney. And it will be one step closer to accomplishing Coburn’s ultimate goal: getting the Vikings back to the NCAA Tournament.
“They fit exactly what champions are,” Coburn said.
“Winning a championship was important to this basketball team because we have championship basketball players and championship people. Now we have to finish it.”
