BOISE, Idaho — For many mid-major men’s basketball teams around the country, trying to build a roster might seem like a daunting task.
For Portland State, this is old hat.
Particularly if you ask Jase Coburn, the former junior college coach turned PSU assistant turned head coach for the Vikings.
Portland State has been competitive during the modern era of the Big Sky Conference. This year’s team might be Coburn’s best team. He’s built a high-octane outfit that takes the No. 3 seed into the Big Sky Tournament and will play No. 6 Idaho on Monday evening at 8 p.m.
The Vikings are flirting with 20 wins. They beat every single team in the league this season at least once. Their 79-76 overtime win over Montana in Portland last week looms large as a reminder to the rest of the conference that they are a real deal title contender. That victory snapped Montana’s 10-game winning streak and denied the Griz an outright Big Sky title.
The Grizzlies have gotten plenty of attention for putting together a 15-3 league record despite having a program-record nine new faces on their roster entering this season. For Portland State, that sounds like the status quo.
“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, who is 63-63 in four seasons leading the Vikings. “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.”
This year’s group has transfers from all over. Tre-Vaughn Minott, a 6-foot-9, 250-pound behemoth, has unlocked much of Coburn’s high-pressure defense by giving the Vikings a legitimate rim protector. He’s a transfer from South Carolina.
Isaiah Johnson has played the role of glue guy and energy creator the last two seasons, averaging 10.3 point sand 4.3 rebounds per game over the last three seasons after transferring from Oregon State.
Jaylin Henderson was Portland State’s leading scorer and one of the leading scorers in the conference (11th) by averaging 13.1 points per game after transferring from Louisiana Tech.
And Qiant Myers might be the biggest get of the all even though he joined the Vikings after playing four seasons at Western Oregon, a Division II school in Monmouth, Oregon that is part of the Great Northwest Athletic Association.
The 6-foot-5, 170-pound Myers might be rail thin but he’s also as cool as the other side of the pillow. His smooth style and high-level passing instincts helped him lead the conference and rank 17th nationally by averaging 6.3 assists per game.
PSU piled up 11 league wins and found a way to finish ahead of traditional league stalwarts like Weber State, Eastern Washington and Montana State in this year’s conference race. The Vikings did it by coming together early, which was evidence by their 8-5 record in the non-conference.
“It’s our relationship we built off the court,” said Myers, who also averaged 10.6 points per game, when asked about what has led to PSU’s success this season. “We have a great group of guys. We are all together, we love each other and I think it translates to the court. We play with each other easily and we have no selfish teammates. Everybody loves each other and we all have fun while playing.”
If you ask other coaches around the league about the surge of the Vikings, they point to difference things.
Sacramento State head coach Michael Czepil, who claims to have watched more Portland State film than anyone except maybe Coburn because Sac is PSU’s travel partner, says it all starts with the man who has the ball in his hands.
“The point guard is a really good player, they have legitimate size and they play really hard,” Czepil said. “Myeres is so smooth and he’s a phenomenal decision maker. That was a nice get for them from the D-II ranks. And Jase does a really good job coaching them. It is something they are used to recruiting-wise when it comes to rebuilding their roster, but you still have to coach the team THIS YEAR and he does a great job.”
Before beating Montana in overtime, Portland State drilled Montana State, winners of the last three Big Sky Tournament championships, 69-52 in Portland. MSU second-year head coach Matt Logie points to the emergence and improved physical conditioning of Minott in unlocking Portland State’s defensive prowess.
“They have a very clear identity in terms of the style of play and the culture in their program,” Logie said. “This year’s group seems to have a lot of cohesion with one another and plays together on both sides of the ball.
“They have had a big jump in production from their big fella in losing some weight and getting healthy off his transfer year and obviously, he has unique size. That helps them make up for some things in the past where maybe they would be able to get back cut or give up penetration against their pressure and you could get to the rim and score.
“He’s able to clean a lot of those things up. He makes teams really think twice about how you attack the basket.”
The reason Portland State beat every team in the conference this season is that Portland State beat every team in the Big Sky when they came to the City of Roses. PSU went 9-0 at the Stott Center in league play and 13-1 at home this season.
“I don’t know why they were so good at home, but I know they are unbelievable at home,” said Northern Colorado head coach Steve Smiley, who’s team lost three games in league play, including falling 82-17 at PSU on February 15. “They were really good against us in both games this year. It’s not like they get a sold out arena. They get a good crowd. But at home, they don’t just play hard, they play with a different edge to them. Man, they are really, really good at home.”
Portland State has been trying to recapture the magic of the Ken Bone days for more than a decade. Bone and his stud point guard Jeremiah Dominguez led Portland State to the NCAA Tournament in 2008 and 2009 before Bone took the coaching death sentence the Washington State head coaching job used to be.
Since then, PSU has employed three solid coaches. Ty Geving led the way from 2009 to 2017 posting a 112-133 record and winning three Big Sky Tournament games. Barrett Peery elevated the program for a few years, compiling a 63-57 record over four seasons before he took an assistant job at Texas Tech.
Coburn came in with no reputation and no fanfare, yet instantly went viral for his wacky yet endearing introductory press conference in which he proclaimed that he never eats breakfast because he wants to show up to work hungry. He also told the saga of living in his car while trying to make it as a college coach.
His bio on the Portland State website reads:
“Make no mistake, Jase Coburn is hungry…
After years of effort, toil and passion, Jase Coburn’s lifelong dream – to be a college basketball head coach – came true. Coburn was named Portland State’s new men’s basketball coach on April 16, 2021 by then-Director of Athletics Valerie Cleary.
His introductory press conference revealed a lot about the man, including the toughness that those who knew within the Portland State Athletic Department were already aware. And, it created a national media flurry. The fact that he didn’t eat breakfast so he would “be hungry” when he got to work… the fact that he drove an old 2003 Chevy Tahoe with no heat or AC… Somehow, that got him interviews and mentions in Atlanta, Chicago, and Phoenix, as well as Portland. It made news on SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt, and at SI.com.
Ironically, it belied the fact that Coburn is about as ego-less as a college basketball coach can be.
Coburn had been the Associate Head Coach of the Viking program since 2018 and part of PSU since arriving as an assistant coach in 2013.”
Because Portland State has been living in the reality of roster overturn for quite some time, Coburn seems less caught up in the overwhelming nature of the times at hand. That’s not to say he’s not intense, though. He might be the most in-your-face coach in the conference and his team’s effort certainly reflects that.
PSU has not gone on a real tournament run since Coburn led the Viks to two tournament wins in his first season. This year seems like the draw is favorable if the Vikings can get past the Vandals in tonight’s Big Sky quarterfinal nightcap.
For Coburn, he’s simply enjoying the ride.
“Me as a coach, I enjoy helping people,” Coburn said. “I know there’s a lot of coaches out there in college basketball that do not like what’s going on in college basketball. But I actually enjoy it If there was no transfer portal, I would never get to coach all of these guys. And that would make me really sad thinking about not coaching these guys.
“I know I’m a little bit different and I think about things differently, but I just enjoy getting to be in other people’s lives so I enjoy this whole period in college hoops.
“Now we just have to come together at the right time.
