 "Photo: TAYLOR HAMBLIN, THE VOLANTE, 2010")
Tyler Cain’s dad set up a basketball hoop in their backyard because he loved to play. Cain would watch his dad shoot hoops, and as he grew up around basketball came to love the game as well.
Now he is a senior and one of the top players on a strong Coyote men’s team; and just this last weekend added another notch to a powerful four-year legacy — 1,000 rebounds. Earlier this season, Cain posted an equally impressive monument, when he reached 1,000 career points Nov. 29, 2009.
Cain said despite his achievements, the idea of doing such things had never really crossed his mind as a freshman on the team.
“That’s a special mark,” Cain said. “It’s always nice to have another thing in the record books to leave behind. Sophomore year, after the season, coach Dave Boots had a talk with me about it, that it’s a goal I should have for myself. That’s really when it became something I wanted to do.”
But for Cain, the game is almost as much about the joy he gets from playing basketball with his teammates as it is about the legacy.
“I’ve always enjoyed playing basketball,” he said. “I’ve always told myself if you are not having fun doing it you shouldn’t do it. That’s the thing, I always have fun playing basketball.”
To start off his senior year, Cain was named Preseason Great West Conference Player of the Year. Since then, he has earned the Player of the Week award twice and was awarded Player of the Month honors in December.
Head Coach Dave Boots said Cain has been a strong player for the team on both the offensive and defensive ends of the game.
“He’s been a good kid to coach,” Boots said. “He’s one of those few players who can make a difference on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court. He affects the game defensively just as much as he can offensively.”
Cain said defense is his specialty.
“My first couple years here, I was a defensive-minded player,” Cain said. “I believe I still am.”
Not only is he a strong player on the defensive end of the court, but Cain also has emerged as a leader for younger players.
“Especially since I’m playing kind of the same position, I can learn a lot from him,” freshman Conrad Krutzwig said. “It’s good to go against him in practice every day. He’s a crack-up, a team player. He’ll tell you what you need to know, and help you out.”
Boots said Cain’s leadership was especially apparent in the locker room.
“He’s playing inside for us so he only gets the ball when somebody passes it to him, so he’s not really in a position to lead from the floor,” Boots said. “But he’s been a team captain for a couple years, and he’s been around so the kids are going to listen to him. He’s not afraid to voice his opinion.”
Cain said he remembered asking older players for advice when he was a freshman, and now he tries to help out his younger teammates just as older players had tried to help him.
“You know, it doesn’t seem that long ago when I was a freshman just trying to find my way around the basketball court,” Cain said. “I had some great senior leadership on my team when I first got here. They said so many things to help me out and it may not have seemed like much at the time but as I got older I understood a little bit more what they were talking about.”
That leads to friendships, both on the court and off, which Cain said have meant a lot to him. He still talks with the previous players on other teams and expects to keep in touch with his current teammates, whom he spends a great deal of time with now on road trips and at practices.
“There are guys I played with as a freshman who are done that I still talk with,” Cain said. “These are guys I hang out with every day, I see them all the time and we become really good friends.”
He came to USD because of the great coaching staff, and because he was comfortable with the players and the position he would be stepping into on the basketball court. Also, he said, he was interested in a school where he could do well in both the classroom and on the court, and found that with the Coyotes.
“He’s been a model student athlete all the way through,” Boots said. “He’s been on all the charts career-wise and just been a good player.”
When Cain came to USD, the school was in Division II basketball, but he was among the athletes who experienced the transition to the higher levels of play, in high quality places and against strong competition.
“It’s been a tough transition, but this year we’ve shown that we are capable of winning some games,” Cain said. “We’re on planes a lot more, we travel a lot more. One week we’ll be in Utah, the next we’ll be in New Jersey. We’re playing against good competition, and that’s probably the biggest thing.”
Despite those difficulties and changes, Cain said the camaraderie on the team made a tremendous difference for everyone.
“It couldn’t have been done with a better group of guys, we have such a great team,” he said. “It makes it very easy, we work well together, work towards the same goals, and talk about those goals and the challenges that are going to be there.”
The transition also allowed him and his team to play in a wide variety of stadiums and against some of the top teams in the country, an experience he said was very exciting as a player.
Cain said he was leaving his post-graduations options open.
“We’ll see what happens with opportunities in basketball,” Cain said. “If not, maybe further my education, be a grad assistant coach maybe.
Right now I’m just excited for these last games we have in the season and after that I’ll see what happens.”
Beyond that, Cain said he was mostly interested in helping out his team any way he could going into the final games of the season.
“I just feel like I’ve gotten better each year. I don’t think I’m at my best yet but I feel that I have improved in all areas of my game,” Cain said. “That comes with growing up.”
Reach reporter Sarah Paulus at Sarah.Paulus@usd.edu.
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