Finally, Minott is making beautiful music on the hardcourt

After four seasons riding the pines at South Carolina and Portland State, Tre-Vaughn is making an impact as a senior with the Vikings (courtesy PSU sports communications)

For his first four years of college basketball, Tre-Vaughn Minott mostly warmed the bench. He did more cheerleading than his schools’ yell leaders.

The situation has changed dramatically this season. As Portland State’s starting center, Minott is making his presence felt.

“This has been something I have been waiting for my entire four years,” the 6-9, 245-pound senior says. “My previous years didn’t go so well, so it is good to see all the hard work I put in to flourish pay off. It has been quite the journey. I am happy.”

So, too, is Portland State coach Jase Coburn with his suddenly possessed pivot.

“I don’t think they give an award for most improved player in the country,” Coburn says. “But if I were to vote, it would be for Tre-Vaughn. The progress from last year to now? I have never seen anything like it. I am really proud of him.”

Minott was the last player off the bench last season for the Vikings, averaging 1.0 point and 1.4 rebounds in his 17 appearances. But Coburn says he noticed a change in the Montreal native around midseason.

“He changed his mindset,” says Coburn, in his fifth year as PSU’s head coach after eight years as an assistant. “He worked harder. After practice, he was jumping rope and working out.”

“My work ethic changed,” Minott acknowledges, “but it didn’t happen overnight. It has been a slow process. I have gotten better incrementally.”

Even so, Minott has burst onto the scene this season in startling fashion. He is averaging 7.7 points and ranks second in the Big Sky in blocked shots (1.8 per game) and third in rebounds (7.1). He is shooting .676 from the field, which would lead the league by a wide margin if he had enough attempts to qualify. Minott is doing it while averaging only 21.2 minutes per game.

In Portland State’s last game, a 72-67 loss at Eastern Washington, Minott collected career highs in points (16) and rebounds (13) and matched his high in blocks (four) in a 32-minute masterpiece. Nine of his boards came off the offensive glass.

“He has had other impactful moments for us, but that was definitely his best game,” Coburn says. “It is awesome to see his progress every single game. He is a different player than he was when the season started. He is even a different player than he was two months ago.”

Minott, now 23, has gone 180 degrees from his beginnings in the game, when he had to be enticed out of his school’s music room for basketball practice.

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Minott has shed 45 pounds since his freshman year at South Carolina. “I’m in the best shape of my life,” he says (courtesy PSU sports communications)

Tre-Vaughn grew up in the French-Canadian province of Quebec, the son of Joel (a mailman) and Michelle Minott, who is now deceased.

“Dad spoke French, but we spoke English at home,” says Tre-Vaughn, who was a de facto only child since his only sibling, a sister, was 17 years older.

“Montreal was a good place to grow up,” he says. “Cold winters. It is very diverse, with a lot of people from different countries and backgrounds. You hear a lot of French. I speak French fluently and a little Spanish and Portuguese.”

The Minotts were members of a Pentecostal church. Tre-Vaughn grew up playing the piano, bass guitar and drums on Sundays.

“Once I got to seventh grade, I decided to take it up a notch and have a concentration on music,” he says. “I signed up for the school band. I started expanding my range.”

In addition to his previous instruments, he began to play trumpet, some saxophone, the clarinet and flute.

But Tre-Vaughn was growing tall — very tall. By the time he was in ninth grade, he was 6-6. The school’s basketball coaches noticed.

Says Minott: “They would say, ‘You have to play basketball here. You’re too tall, you’re too big, you have the size.’ But I was into music so heavily, it was to the point where they would have to hunt me down to go to practice. I would rather skip practice and be with my band.”

But during that season, “I had a great game, and it clicked,” he says. “I decided to push the music to the side and put my all into basketball. Ever since I did that, I have not regretted it.”

One thing that intrigued Minott was watching video of such big men as Shaquille O’Neal and Joel Embiid.

“What drew me most toward basketball was the fact that you could be so dominant,” he says. “I would be like, ‘Why can’t I be like that?’ Something about that attracted me. I tried to model my game after theirs.”

After playing varsity for two high school seasons, Minott was invited to play for the Canadian national U-18 team. He participated in the 2018 The Americas team camp, spending a week in Mexico City and playing exhibition games against Team Argentina and Team Brazil. Then it was on to Argentina for the FIBA U-18 Cup.

“It was so much fun, but it was kind of weird,” Minott says. “I remember feeling culture shock when we got there in late June or July, which was winter for them.”

For six months in 2019 and 2020, Minott played at the NBA Academy Latin America in Mexico City. In March    ’20, the academy got shut down because of Covid, and Minott returned to Montreal.

“But I was so grateful to basketball,” he says. “It had allowed me to visit all these places throughout the world.”

Minott was in Montreal for nearly 10 months. He was recruited by Providence but ended up not going there. In early January 2021, life changed quickly.

“I got a call from South Carolina,” he says. “It was such an overnight thing. They called our people at the NBA Academy out of nowhere and said, ‘We need a ‘big.’ We will take (Minott) right now.’

“I just jumped on it. I didn’t even visit. I said yes immediately.”

After a couple of practices, Minott suited but didn’t play in South Carolina’s 85-80 loss at Louisiana State. “The week before, I had been at home sitting on my couch,” he says. “Then it was like, ‘Damn, when I was home, I wasn’t even dreaming this could be possible. Now here I am.’ It was such an intense game. I was like, ‘Wow, this is college basketball.’ ”

A week later, Minott saw his first action, playing four minutes in a 109-86 blowout loss to Auburn. He played sparingly during his freshman season.

“I am going to be completely honest: I did not deserve to play more than I did,” he says. “But I am grateful for the way my journey turned out. If I had played back then, I wouldn’t have known how to handle everything that came with it. I got complacent. I wasn’t working hard. I was pointing fingers. I was like, ‘The reason I am not playing is this or that.’ I was making excuses. I wasn’t able to point inwardly to me.”

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Minott hopes to play professionally after college, but has a music career to which to turn (courtesy PSU sports communications)

When Minott arrived at South Carolina, he weighed 290 pounds.

“I was not in shape at all,” he says.

Gradually, under the direction of Gamecocks strength and conditioning coach Scott Greenawalt, that changed.

“I owe Scott everything,” Minott says. “He is the best strength coach I have ever had. He showed me what it means to work in the weight room. Got me to love the weight room. I used to hate it. I fell in love with it doing his stuff.”

Gradually, Minott pared weight and got stronger. Still, he played little for South Carolina the next two seasons. Looking for a chance to play, he entered the transfer portal. Portland State was one of the first schools to call. Matt Dunn, the Vikings’ associate head coach, had recruited Minott when he was at the NBA Academy and Dunn was coaching at Northern Arizona.

“He came back around and kept the faith in me,” Minott says. “That propelled me toward coming here.”

But Minott rarely got off the bench in his first season with Portland State.

“I wasn’t ready to play last year,” he says. “Now I am able to admit that. I am just glad that I faced adversity and didn’t quit. It would have been so easy during the season, when things aren’t going your way, to just crumple down and give up. I knew that wasn’t in me. I knew I would be wrong if I did that. It was just a matter of pushing through it.

“It wasn’t until I got here that I began to understand that I was going to have to work for it. I put in the work, and here I am.”

Minott couldn’t crack the rotation last season.

“We were playing some other guys,” Coburn says. “But there was really a change in him 13 months ago. You could just see it. The light bulb went on. He changed his mindset and his mentality. Going into his last year of college basketball, he knew it was time to get going.

“At that point, he knew he wanted to get ready for the (2024-25) season. He took it very seriously. He amped it up on his own after practice every day.”

This season, says Coburn, “Tre-Vaughn is one of our hardest workers. On Mondays, he gets here at 5 a.m. and works out with Coach Dunn. He has lost a lot of weight and can really move now. Credit to him and to Matt for that. It has been an awesome transformation.”

“Now I am in the best shape I have ever been in,” Minott says, who says he has grown to appreciate his experience at Portland State.

“The coaches have made it easy to have fun,” he says. “I have enjoyed my teammates and the overall community. Everyone here is so nice.

“(Coburn) is the best coach that I have had. He has so much energy. He expects and demands so much out of you. He is going to encourage you to do that and give you the confidence that you can get it done. When you have a coach like that on your side, you are not afraid to make mistakes. You play through everything.

“And Matt Dunn, he takes his time and is patient with me. Those things motivate you to want to play for these coaches. Having them on my side has been great.”

Coburn is glad Minott came cross-country to become a Viking.

“Tre-Vaughn has been awesome to coach,” he says. “He is a tremendous kid. He has a great personality. He brings energy to practice and games every single day. There has never been a time where I have questioned his heart. He is exactly what you look for in a player.”

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Seven regular-season games remain on the schedule for Portland State, 14-10 overall and 6-5 and tied for third place in the Big Sky. Northern Arizona (14-11, 5-7) and co-conference-leader Northern Colorado (18-7, 10-2) are coming up Thursday and Saturday in a pair of games at the PSU Pavilion.

“The goal is still to finish in first place,” Minott says. “It is going to be interesting to see what happens the rest of the way. We are all bought in at this point. Nothing is stopping us. We are a tremendous team. We are so good defensively. I believe in us.”

Minott is still involved in the music scene, though he isn’t playing any instruments these days.

“It is more on the software side — beats and making core progressions on my computer,” says Minott, who is scheduled to graduate in June with a degree in communications and advertising management.

Music is a diversion his coach endorses.

“Basketball is not always sunshine,” Coburn says. “Things don’t always go great. It is tough when you put all your eggs in one basket and your mood is dictated totally off how basketball goes. We all need something else to take our mind off basketball once in awhile. Tre-Vaughn has his music. It really helps him keep a good mental balance.”

Eventually, Minott hopes to work in music production.

“I love hip-hop, rap and R&B,” he says, “but honestly, I just love everything. My mom was from Jamaica so I am heavily influenced by the island grooves and reggae.”

Minott would like to continue his basketball career on the professional level.

“I want to give the NBA or the G-League a shot,” he says. “But it is wherever the cookie crumbles — wherever I am needed or wanted.”

No matter what happens, he will look back at his time at Portland State with fondness.

“This whole college career has been such a ride,” he says with a smile. “The way it is unfolding now is so beautiful because of how rough it started. I am just glad to see that I have gotten better — not just as a basketball player, but as a person. The whole thing has helped me to grow.”

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