Couch: LSJ's Dream Team guards overlooked because they're undersized

Division I college basketball programs don’t like short guards. They treat 5-foot-9 like leprosy and tend to think of shade over 6-feet as a shade short of humanity.

Some are blunt. Others more condescending. Most speak loudly with their silence.

They simply don’t call. As if the player doesn’t exist. The irony is they sometimes regret it.

The best Lansing area guards in this senior class have lived with this deafening silence over the last year. Grand Ledge’s Malek Adams, Haslett’s Brandon Allen, Everett’s Jamyrin Jackson and Williamston’s Riley Lewis — four of the members of this year’s Lansing State Journal Dream Team — are in danger of developing a Napoleon complex if they let Division I coaches determine their self worth.

“Even in (Division II, a) coach said, ‘Oh, we love Little Riley,’” said Tom Lewis the father and AAU coach of Riley Lewis, who led Williamston to the Class B state semifinals last month. “They always called him ‘Little Riley.’ You know right there (what’s not happening). It’s not real exciting (for a coach) to go back to his athletic director or assistant and say, ‘Hey, I found this 5-11 guard who weighs 150 pounds.’”

Lewis, all 150 pounds of him, is headed to Hope College in Holland — a traditional Division-III power, with a passionate large fan base and mid-major Division I-caliber facilities. It ought to be a good experience.

Adams signed his letter of intent Saturday to play at Division-II Lake Superior State in Sault Ste. Marie, which plays in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, better known as the GLIAC.

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Jackson on Tuesday is scheduled to visit Davenport University, which competes in the NAIA — separate from the NCAA. Davenport, based in suburban Grand Rapids, is transitioning to the NCAA and has accepted an invitation to join the GLIAC beginning in 2017.

Allen is holding out, hoping for a place in Division I.

“I just feel like I belong there,” Haslett’s all-time leading scorer said.

The hangup: “It’s really just height,” he continued.

Allen 5-9 and 160 pounds. The shortest of a small group of big-time high school players. If they were each a couple inches taller, there’d be Big Ten interest, with offers flooding from the Mid-American Conference and Horizon League.

“I’ve had a lot of people ask, ‘Malek’s got to be getting MAC looks or some small D-I looks,’” Grand Ledge coach Scott Lewis said of Adams. “From a talent standpoint, I think he could. But he didn’t. And I’m not sure quite why, to be honest with you.

“I think the kid is probably a small Division-I player, but I’m a huge fan of the GLIAC. I think all those guys are very, very talented. It’s one of the best Division-II conferences in the nation. A lot of them are one step away from Division I — they’ve got the quickness but don’t have the height, or they have the height but maybe don’t have the skill set.”

Most of the players in MAC and Horizon League are guys who thought they should have gone higher, too. That’s the way it works — everyone is always a step down from where they think they should be. But height is the deterrent that most often causes college coaches to error.

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After Everett’s Class A state semifinal loss last month, I asked one MAC head coach and his assistant, sitting courtside, if Jackson could play in their league. Both thought he was too short for a kid who’s a specialty player — a shooter. The GLIAC would be a good fit, they said. Perhaps they’re right.

Everett coach Desmond Ferguson — who played in college at Missouri and Detroit, and had a cup of tea in the NBA during a long pro career — thinks most of these guys are winding up in the right places, including his own player. Of course, Ferguson is 6-7. He never dealt with any of this crap.

“He’s a legit 6-2,” Ferguson said of Jackson. “A wiry, strong body. He has a good handle for a 2-guard. Obviously he has a D-I ability to shoot the ball. He has a D-I skill, shooting. I was hoping a team in the Horizon (would recruit him), because that’s a shooter’s league — Oakland, if he could have snuck in there, but nothing happened with that.

“Everybody wants to play D-I, but it’s not easy.”

“It’s been pretty stressful,” Jackson said. “Junior year, I thought stuff like this would take care of itself. I thought I’d be in a different situation. But it’s a great experience to have any college looking at me and trying to give me a free education.”

Consistency, Ferguson said, was Jackson’s biggest downfall in garnering Division-I attention. He also didn’t play on the AAU circuit the last couple of summers, where so many decisions on players are made.

Of course, that wasn’t enough for Riley Lewis or Allen — who, together in one backcourt, have turned heads playing in AAU tournaments against players far more highly regarded.

Allen, for example, scored 28 points last year head-to-head against D’Mitrick Trice, the brother of former MSU guard Travis Trice. The younger Trice has a scholarship offer from Ohio State. The Allen-Lewis duo — in the same AAU backcourt since sixth grade — also led a near upset of an AAU power with multiple high-major prospects.

“Some of the performances they had and our team had, if you don’t like those guys after that, you’re never going to like them,” Tom Lewis said.

Riley had a late scholarship offer from Division-II Northern Michigan, but chose to stay with his decision to attend Hope. He isn’t upset about his fate, which doesn’t include an athletic scholarship, though comes with a financial aid package.

Hope recruited him hard. And Riley knew Hope coach Greg Mitchell from Mitchell’s days at Laingsburg.

“He had a Hope coach at every game from probably the last 18 months for anything he did,” Tom Lewis said of his son. “Everybody always talks, ‘Go where you’re loved.’”

Hope loved Riley Lewis. Its fans, too. They followed Williamston’s postseason run, showing up at games. And when Riley Lewis took his visit there, the arena was packed.

“I really wasn’t planning on a crowd like that unless I played in a power five conference,” Riley Lewis said. “That kind of put it apart from other schools. … It’s a pretty cool place to be.”

Adams is also making the most of his D-I snub. Once he visited Lake Superior State, met the players, a felt a winning culture, he thought it was a “good fit.”

“I still think I’m a D-I player,” the former Grand Ledge star said. “It’s just sometimes life doesn’t go your way, so you’ve got to deal with what you’ve got and make the best of it.”

Lake Superior State coach Steve Hettinga is used to selling kids with Division I dreams on a quality D-II experience, including professional basketball opportunities overseas after graduation.

Someone else's hang-up, is Lake State’s gain.

“For us, we’re trying to recruit the best players we can get,” Hettinga said. “Size to us doesn’t matter. Our first-team all-conference point guard this year was 5-foot-8. Sometimes good things come in small packages.”

Allen believes that, too. He’s still hoping Division I coaches see it in him. If there is no Division I offer, he won’t settle. He’ll likely go the junior college route for a year to further prove what he believes he’s already proven.

At one point, Allen had an offer from Division-I Long Beach State in California. He’s hoping interest from D-I programs Arkansas State and Wofford College (in South Carolina) becomes something tangible.

If not, he won’t walk on at MSU or anywhere else. The scholarship is validation, the proof you’re valued.

“I would go to a juco before I walked on anywhere,” Allen said. “I kind of thought about walking on at Michigan State, but with (incoming point guard) Cassius Winston, he’s probably going to be a four-year guy.”

Allen doesn’t want to wave a towel from the bench or say he’s on the team. He doesn’t see himself that way. He wants a Division I college career.

“It’s just a long process that really wears on you,” Allen said.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.