Climb leads to top
Maurice Swan doesn’t remember a whole lot about the 2005 State 3A boys basketball tournament.
A junior transfer from Curtis High School in Tacoma, Swan was playing his first season of high school basketball, learning both the game and the way West Valley likes to play it. From deep on the Eagles’ bench, Swan saw most of his minutes late in games long since decided.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember that much about the state tournament or what it was like around school leading up to the state tournament,” the 6-foot-3 guard said. “I didn’t play that much, but I know I was really happy to get there and everything.
“This year is like a whole different atmosphere for me. I’m playing more. I’m invested in this trip to state.”
This year’s trip to the Tacoma Dome has been a different story.
Swan joined his cousin, senior post E.J. Richardson, in the starting lineup late in the regular season and has been an integral part of the team’s postseason drive back to the state tourney.
“We knew it was coming all year,” West Valley coach Jamie Nilles said of Swan’s arrival in the starting lineup. “A lot of Mo’s stuff was about self-confidence. Once he got that figured out and he’s been playing really well for us.
“Rebounding, defending, scoring a little bit – everything we like our guards to do.”
It’s been a long climb for Swan, who condensed his entire basketball career into the past two seasons.
At Curtis, one of the biggest Class 4A schools in Western Washington, Swan did not make the basketball team, and after his mother died his sophomore year, he moved with his father to Spokane Valley and enrolled at West Valley.
Not only has he made a place for himself on the basketball team, he found an extended family.
“All the players – we’re not really like teammates,” Swan said. “We’re like brothers. We’re there for each other. If someone is having a hard time, we’re there to help them out.”
“He never played any organized basketball until he got here last year and played for us on the junior varsity,” Nilles said. “He had no idea how to deal with screens – how to set screens, how to get over screens, how to call out a screen. He’s improved more than anybody the last two years.
“He went from off the bench, trying to figure everything out, to starting and leading us in rebounds in several games down the stretch.”
Rebounding is Swan’s forte.
“Rebounding is a mental thing,” Swan explained. “You just have to have the mind-set that you are going to go get the ball.”
It’s the way that Swan goes to get the basketball that makes his coach pause.
“He’s one of those players that you just have to watch because you know he’s going to do something you’ve never seen before. Something incredible,” Nilles said. “He does that with his rebounding. He’ll come out of nowhere. You’ll look at him and say to yourself ‘Did he just do that?’ And it’s something different every time.
“One of his goals is to get 20 rebounds in a game. Rebounding is his passion. He can score a little for us, too, but his focus is on rebounding.”
Improved rebounding is one area where the Eagles (19-4) lifted their game after completing a 16-4 regular season in the Greater Spokane League. It was the difference in a team that lost twice to North Central in the regular season, but won two postseason meetings en route to a No. 1 seed into the state tournament.
“When you can hold your opponent to one shot and out, it changes a game,” Nilles said. “They start coming down and start taking more chances and putting up bad shots, pressing a little bit.”
Swan credits a change in attitude with the team’s improved postseason play.
“In the regular season we thought we were going to come in and go undefeated,” Swan said. “We didn’t think we were going to lose to anybody. We underestimated teams and got cocky. Once we got beat by North Central twice, G-Prep and Ferris, when we got into the postseason, we knew we had to step up if we were going to make it to state.”
Nilles said he’s enjoyed watching Swan emerge from his ugly ducking beginnings, blossoming into a basketball player with a future.
“Mo is one of those kids who will be able to go on and play basketball in college,” he said. “I think he can go to a community college and continue to discover just how good he is and how good he can be.”