One of the hardest things to do is to live up to expectations. Everyone is watching you. The critics are ready. Perform or else.
That’s what makes Brett Kingma’s recently-completed season so remarkable. The senior guard from the Jackson High School basketball team came into the season as one of the state’s most visible high school athletes, an Oregon recruit and star of one of the state’e best teams and despite the constant attention — defensive and otherwise — the 6-foot-2 senior put together an outstanding final round as a prep.
For his efforts, Kingma has been selected as the Herald’s High School Boys Basketball Player of the Year.
“You have to take everything with a grain of salt,” said Kingma, who led Jackson to a district championship and a spot in the Class 4A state tournament. “You just can’t let it get to you too much. I play better when someone doubts me. There’s always going to be doubters, saying I can’t rebound, I can’t win, that I care more about myself than winning. I just let my play do the talking.”
Kingma wasted very little time in showing that the high expectations would do little to affect his play. He scored at least 30 points in five of his first six games and ended up with 14 games of at least 30 points, averaging 29.8 for the season. He was held under 20 just twice and had three games of at least 40 points, including back-to-back games of 43 and 41 points against Edmonds-Woodway and Kamiak, respectively.
“I don’t think he worries too much about the negatives,” Jackson coach Steve Johnson said. “He’s pretty confident in what he can do well and focused on what he has to do. He doesn’t listen to the critics.”
And there were plenty of critics out there. Some said he’s nothing more than a shooter. Some said he can’t defend. Some said he cared little about his team and only for his statistics. While Kingma is aware of those criticisms, he believes he’s answered them.
“If we were 1-19, then maybe they’d have a valid point,” Kingma said. “But all I want to do is win, and win with my teammates. People who think otherwise, I don’t pay much attention to. I led my team in assists, I showed I can score in different ways and I’m more athletic than people think. And I play within what our team needs.”
Of course, what Jackson mostly needed him to do was score. It helped that the Timberwolves had a solid supporting cast led by Austin O’Keefe and Jason Todd, but teams were well aware that to have any chance of beating Jackson, they had to take away Kingma. That’s one reason (foul trouble is another) why Kingma had a season-low 11 points against Stanwood, which spent the entire game denying him the ball only to lose by 26 points.
“Anyone who thought that I had to do all the scoring didn’t watch our games,” said Kingma, who believes that Kentwood did the best job of defending him this season, though he did score 28 points in a loss. “My ability to score is because we have other guys who can score. If you’d rather just stop me than win the game, I’ll take that.”
If anyone knows how to slow down Kingma, it’s his coach. So how would Johnson have defended his star?
“I’d work really hard to keep him from getting the ball because once he has the ball, you’re in a little trouble,” Johnson said. “I’d be physical with him as much as the referees would allow. Of course, all that is easier said than done.”
Kingma now must turn his attention to expanding his game even more as he moved on to Oregon and the Pac-12. Kingma said he expects to compete for a starting job for the Ducks, who reached the Pac-10 tournament semifinals. He expects to head to Eugene in June to begin summer course and working out with the team in hopes of becoming the next great Washington guard — think Luke Ridnour and Aaron Brooks — to head south for his college experience.
“You get a little spoiled when you see a guy score like he does,” Johnson said. “You sometimes forget how hard it is to do what he did night after night. He saw every defense you can see and he still performed while making his team better.”
“I’ve still got to work on getting my shots off quicker, becoming a better dribbler, defender, rebounder,” Kingma said. “I want to be as good an all-around player as I can be and step in, play and help the team win. That’s what my plan is.”
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