From Montreal to Mexico to Columbia: How USC landed big man from NBA Academy
In a span of about 16 months, 19-year-old Tre-Vaughn Minott moved from his native Montreal to Mexico City, then back to Montreal, then finally to Columbia, where he joined the South Carolina men’s basketball team midseason.
That’s not the typical path for a college freshman. Then again, nothing has been typical about this season.
The Gamecocks announced Minott’s signing from NBA Academy Latin America on Jan. 8, declaring the freshman would be eligible to play immediately. The move came as somewhat of a surprise, yet it was overshadowed by the team’s announcement a day earlier — that it would shut down for a third time due to positive COVID-19 tests within the program.
When Minott (pronounced “mi-NOT”) stepped on campus for the first time, neither head coach Frank Martin nor top assistant Chuck Martin, the coach who recruited him, were there to greet him. Both came down with the virus themselves. Both were in isolation.
Minott’s first days with the Gamecocks — and first days on a college roster — came with assistant Bruce Shingler as acting head coach. Minott only had time to put in a couple of practices before he traveled with his brand new teammates on the road to LSU on Jan. 16.
Minott didn’t play in that game, but the hulking 6-foot-10 center made an immediate impression on Shingler during practice.
“That’s a big old sucker,” Shingler said, eyes wide. “He came into practice and I talked to Frank about him, and I talked to Chuck about him. I love what he brings to practice, his energy. His spirit is high. He’s always talking. He’s engaged. You think about it: He’s never ran an offensive set, never did a drill. But he doesn’t look lost.”
A week later, with both Martins back in the fold, Minott played in his first college game. It was only a brief, four-minute taste of the action, coming at the tail end of a disastrous 109-86 home loss to Auburn on Jan. 23. But it was an important taste nonetheless. In the coming weeks, it’s possible Minott’s role with the team could grow out of sheer necessity.
USC’s frontcourt is in shambles, thinned out by COVID-19. Martin called 6-foot-10 sophomore Wildens Leveque “the lone survivor” among his big men prior to the game against Auburn, and the Tigers proceeded to score at will against the Gamecocks inside the paint.
On Tuesday, Martin announced that Alanzo Frink, the team’s most experienced big man and opening day starter at center, would miss the rest of the season due to unspecified “medical reasons’‘ related to the virus. Frink hadn’t played a game since Dec. 5 at Houston, three days before the Gamecocks announced their first pause in activities.
Quite simply, the Gamecocks need healthy bodies, and they need size inside.
With his season now over, Frink has made the freshman Minott his own personal project.
“(Frink has) put on a ball cap like me, and he’s out there spending a lot of time with Tre-Vaughn, trying to teach him, help him and coach him,” Martin said. “He’s become kind of Tre-Vaughn’s personal coach, trying to catch him up on a lot of stuff.
“... Alanzo’s care for the team is something that’s going to help our guys continue to heal. And Tre-Vaughn specifically, I know Alanzo is going to help him tremendously.”
With the Gamecocks already six games into Southeastern Conference play, Minott doesn’t have much time to settle into his new environment. Maybe it’s not enough time. Maybe he won’t truly hit his stride until next season, when he’ll still be eligible to compete as a freshman.
But if there’s one trait, beyond his gigantic frame, that gives Minott a chance to make an impact in the weeks and months ahead, it’s his ability to adapt — and adapt quickly.
Minott a ‘gentle giant’
People in Minott’s orbit describe him as thoughtful, inquisitive, intelligent.
Music was his first love. By the time he reached seventh grade, Minott knew how to play eight instruments. Thanks to his Montreal upbringing, he also speaks three languages — English, French and Creole — and he switches between them with ease, even during the course of a basketball game.
Like many big men, Minott’s interest in basketball didn’t grow until he grew himself. His blossoming size steered him toward the game.
“Around eighth grade I realized that I could be good at basketball, so I took it more seriously,” Minott said in a June interview with 247Sports. “And by the time ninth grade came about, I was really starting to develop and knew I could become something special if I kept my mind to it, kept pushing and kept working.
“I really had no intentions of becoming a basketball player at all. It just happened.”
But the more Minott played, and the bigger he grew in physical stature, the more he gained buzz in Canadian basketball circles. In the fall of 2019, he decided to enroll in the NBA Academy program.
Founded in 2016, NBA Academy is a basketball development initiative that provides top international male and female high school prospects holistic training and education. The program focuses on health, wellness and life skills as well as providing training from NBA-quality coaches and an NCAA-certified curriculum.
The NBA has academies in Australia, India, China, Senegal and Mexico. NBA Academy Latin America in Mexico City invites prospects from Latin America and Canada.
Minott was teammates with two other Montreal natives in Mexico City, both of whom have also latched on with Division I programs this season. Arizona scooped up 6-foot-7 wing Bennedict Mathurin, while Clemson signed versatile 6-foot-8 forward Oliver-Maxence Prosper. Both players have contributed as freshmen, and Prosper’s presence at Clemson provides another layer to the Gamecocks-Tigers rivalry.
“There’s a unique pipeline that has sort of developed somewhat naturally between across the border in Canada and the Mexico academy,” the NBA’s senior director of international basketball operations, Chris Ebersole, told The State.
Added Ebersole, laughing: “Now we not only have the Montreal to Mexico City pipeline, but now we also have the Mexico to the state of South Carolina pipeline going, as well. Not by design at all.”
Ebersole, who oversees the NBA Academy program in addition to Basketball Without Borders, said that Minott is the 43rd player to make the jump from NBA Academy to a Division I team.
“We’re extremely proud of him,” Ebersole said. “And he’s such a good representative of everything we want to do with the NBA Academy program.”
Greg Collucci, the NBA Academy coaching and player pathways lead, worked directly with Minott, helped him throughout the recruiting process and saw firsthand the gains he made both as a player and a person. When he joined the academy, Minott was still a raw talent and overweight at 275 pounds. At first, Collucci worried Minott might be too nice for a post player.
“He kind of came in a little bit — I don’t want to say timid — but just uncertain of where this all was going,” Collucci told The State. “I think he was excited about the opportunity, but he was thrown into a lot of different things, and he was a little bit of a gentle giant in terms of his personality. But on the court, he was really able to kind of put aside some of the niceness and do the things that he had to do.
“... He’s able to be a little bit mean, which I know, coach Martin and the staff down there, you better be physically tough and mentally tough and all those things to play in that program.”
Both Collucci and Ebersole marveled at how quickly Minott seized a vocal leadership role within the program and how engaged he was — so engaged that he attempted to learn Spanish during his time in Mexico City. Ebersole said he’d hear Minott speaking the language with his Latin teammates and coaches. He wasn’t fluent, but he also wasn’t afraid to try.
Minott reshaped his body, dropping 40 pounds, and he started receiving increased interest from college recruiters during showcase events with the NBA Academy Latin America team in Rhode Island and Montreal.
In early spring, COVID-19 struck, canceling a string of events Minott and his teammates had planned to participate in. After six months in Mexico City, Minott moved back home to Montreal and continued his academy instruction virtually. Though he couldn’t play basketball like he had hoped, he never wavered in his academic work or in holding his fellow academy mates accountable for doing theirs.
“We were excited to see in the spring and summer what type of interest he would garner, and unfortunately a lot of those events didn’t happen,” Ebersole said. “But to Tre’s credit, he stuck with it, with his physical development, with his basketball skills, with his academics, all those things really dialed in and making sure that he was ready when the opportunity would come.
“And it came quickly. And it turned around really fast. But now I think he’s in a great position. And hopefully it sounds like he’ll have a chance to at least try to make his mark.”
The next level: SEC basketball
In the short time Minott has been in Columbia, the Gamecocks have already seen the freshman’s aptitude in action.
“He understands the things that we try to do better than some guys who have been on our team all year — and you combine their knowledge,” Martin said after Minott’s debut against Auburn. “The problem with him is ever since the pandemic shut down the NBA Academy that he was at in Mexico, he’s basically been home in Montreal and just like everyone else don’t have a lot of places to play in. And he’s somebody that needs to get in better shape. He’s gotta get used to the speed of changing ends and the athletes we play against. I can guarantee you that for the last 10 months he has not played against any athlete like Auburn has.
“We’ve just gotta help him. We’ve gotta teach him, and then he’s gotta do his part and he’s gotta work really hard to get in a lot better shape so he can keep up with the game and he can impact it with what he’s good at around the basket.”
The Gamecocks are no strangers to the Canadian prep basketball landscape, with Duane Notice and current guard A.J. Lawson serving as recent examples of Canadians enrolling in Columbia.
Minott was someone USC identified two years ago on the recruiting trail, and with the Gamecocks scrambling to field a complete roster throughout the winter, Chuck Martin reached out to the NBA Academy to see if something could be arranged.
The Gamecocks had an extra scholarship at their disposal due to the unexpected departure of freshman big man Patrick Iriel before the season, and Frank Martin had said at the time that the Gamecocks could look at adding someone in the spring semester.
“Chuck Martin came in and said, ‘Frank, you remember seeing this young man?’” Martin said on his Carolina Calls radio show. “I said, ‘Yeah, I do,’ but that was two years ago and didn’t remember. So he caught me up to speed, and we watched a bunch of film.”
The film shows a player who is still sharpening some of the finer aspects of his game and who still needs to work on his jump shot. But his sheer physicality is impossible to ignore, with Martin saying Minott’s reach is about 7-foot-6.
There will be — and already has been — a learning curve, but that doesn’t mean Minott can’t find a way to contribute.
“I mean, any basketball player getting thrown into not playing basketball for a period of time, then immediately into SEC play will have an adjustment,” Collucci said. “But with that said, the things that he’ll be able to do and contribute carry over to any level of basketball. He’s long, he’s athletic, he’s physical. He’s a very good rebounder. He’ll finish around the rim, he’s starting to extend his shooting out a little bit further, but that’ll be something that I think comes in the future. Defensively, he’ll be able to provide minutes in the paint and be able to kind of be an anchor down there.
“I think that’s how they’ve envisioned him with their talks with us, understanding that there’s going to be some time, he’s got to be a little bit patient with his development. But I think, as time goes, in the history of coach Martin, what he’s done with big men and how they develop, I think he’s got a chance to be a really good player in the future.”
This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 9:32 AM.
