Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SAN DIEGO — As the minutes ticked away in the Big Sky championship game, there was perhaps no player who smiled larger than Weber State senior center Kyle Tresnak.
Tresnak, who had never been to the NCAA tournament in his career at Weber State, despite playing with future NBA Rookie of the Year Damian Lillard, left the game with minutes remaining and received a large roar from the highly partisan crowd inside the Dee Events Center. Indeed, it was his Wildcats who were going to the NCAA tournament as the Big Sky champions, and the feeling of elation hasn’t worn off even almost a week later.
“I’ve been dreaming of this my whole life,” said Tresnak, referring to the tournament. “To make it actually become a reality is (unbelievable). When I talk about it, I’m still in shock.”
The senior grew up in Arizona and grew up a fan of Lute Olsen’s Arizona Wildcats teams. Now, he finds it ironic that he is facing Arizona in his first-and-last trip to the tournament.
“I was always an Arizona Wildcats fan; I was never a fan of the (Arizona State) Sun Devils,” Tresnak said. “Lute Olsen was a great coach, and I always liked following them in the NCAA tournament. But now we get to play against them, so it’s a little crazier.”
It’s a long way from Scottsdale, Ariz., to Ogden, Utah, and Weber coach Randy Rahe noted Tresnak was an enigma early on. He had the foundation of being a big kid, but wasn’t overwhelmingly large at the time; had the speed of an athlete, but was at times uncoordinated. Even when he arrived at Weber, Rahe said the Wildcats still weren’t exactly sure how to best use his talents.
“When we first got him, we thought, ‘You know, he’s close to 6-foot-9, we need to get him up to about 250, 260 (pounds); let’s make him a big, strong guy,” he said. “And he was that way for a couple years, and then we figured out that he wasn’t rebounding the ball and he wasn’t moving as well. So, after his sophomore year, we decided we need to go the other way; we need to lean him up.”
Still, Rahe noted some tendencies in Tresnak that excited him; mainly, how he approached the game, regardless of the situation.
“Every year he’s been in our program, he (Tresnak) has gotten better,” he said. “I’ve had Tres for four years, and I don’t remember him having a bad day. In practice, his effort is the same every single day since his freshman year to now.”
Tresnak’s journey has been filled with peaks and valleys, and many of those have come this season. After a 24-point game performance early in the season against BYU, he and the Wildcats struggled, opening the season 1-4, with losses against three in-state rivals (BYU, USU, UVU).
It was during this time that Tresnak focused on maintaining the team’s confidence, taking on a leadership role that stabilized the team, in Rahe’s view.
“We relied on a lot of those seniors, because they’ve been through it,” Rahe said. “Our preseason schedule every year is really hard, and I think our young guys got a little stunned. With Tres, (he) let the young guys know, ‘Hey, this is normal. We’re going to play really good teams, and we might not be successful, so how do we handle the adversity?’ Tres was a rock.”
One person who has been strongly influenced by Tresnak is sophomore forward Joel Bolomboy, who considers himself good friends with Tresnak. Bolomboy, who won this year’s Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year award, said he has learned a great deal about patience from his upperclassman teammate.
“I have to guard him every day in practice, and he’s really skilled offensively, so he’s testing me and I’m testing him at the same time,” said Bolomboy.
After Tresnak’s breakout performance against BYU, teams reverted to double-teaming him inside to deny him the ball. However, Rahe said the events of the Big Sky championship game created the perfect storm for Tresnak, and the entire team, to succeed.
“It was really fun to see him (in the championship game),” said Rahe, referring to Tresnak’s career-high performance of 27 points. “It was interesting because they didn’t double-team him, he scored a couple buckets, then they went to double-team him and then he threw inside-out. And, all of the sudden we hit threes.
“So now, they didn’t want to give up threes, so they went single-coverage in the second half and then we went to him almost every possession, and they couldn’t deal with him.”
In their time with the Wildcats, Rahe and his staff have focused on recruiting a particular type of player to Weber State — one with good sportsmanship, strong work ethic and high character. Rahe said he feels Tresnak perfectly embodies what he wants his Wildcats to look like.
“He’s really a poster child for what we want our program to be about,” said Rahe, who earned his fourth Big Sky Coach of the Year award for his work this season. “You’ve got to be careful with guys like (Tresnak) because you almost take them for granted. And, I catch myself once in awhile for taking him for granted. Maybe not talking to him enough, because I know what I’m getting.”
For his part, Tresnak noted that the legacy of the Weber State program is incredibly rich, and he is excited to have been a part of the program’s recent success.
“I have the same picture in my head of the goofy freshman who came here and was just excited to play college basketball,” he said. “I hope to be able to be a part of the great tradition, because we’ve had a lot of great players. And I hope to be considered a great player to come through this program. Just to be in the same breath as those people would be a great honor.”
With Arizona looming in the distance, Weber’s entire focus is now on stopping the ’Zona attack. Rahe said that playing a traditional team like Arizona bodes well for the part of trying to play Tresnak and Bolomboy together in efforts to create a mismatch on the floor.
“The Big Sky is an unconventional league — I would say three-fourths of the teams play with four guards,” said Rahe, who has coached Weber to two NCAA tournament appearances. “For the most part, they’re (Arizona) pretty conventional, so our game plan will be the same — we always play inside-out to begin, and try to hurt them inside and see what happens.”
Regardless of how the game against No. 1 seed Arizona turns out, Rahe said he expects Tresnak to be a hallmark of success for the Weber State program.
“Even when his playing career is over, Tres is going to be successful in whatever he decides to do. He’s very intelligent; he’s a hard-working kid. He’s got the character, the integrity, the personality to be really successful. And he’s going to be a great family man; he’s going to be a great father; he’s going to be a great husband because he’s such a great person. I’m going to see a very happy, successful, family person.”
