MIDDLETOWN — For 18 games this season, the line on Middletown varsity boys” basketball has been virtually the same. To wit: The Mustangs” leading scorer was Tyler Hunt.
It”s beginning to sound like a broken record. No, it”s beginning to sound like a lot of broken records. Already, the gifted Hunt has become only the fourth player to score more than 1,000 career points at Middletown and well before the season”s end he is a lock to break the school scoring record of 1,066 set by David Wetherbee (1993 graduate) when Bill Foltmer was the Middletown coach.
“I think he should make it, but it”s something we don”t talk about,” Mustang coach Mike Mullin said of Hunt”s all-time leading scorer prospects.
“It”s nice to get the 1,000 out of the way,” the Mustang coach added, referring to a game at St. Vincent on Jan. 9 during which Hunt meshed the front end of a one-and-one to reach the four-digit pinnacle. “He doesn”t talk about it, but it”s always in the back of your mind. Even so, I didn”t notice any incidents where he was trying to do anymore than he normally would.”
The issue is not so much how many points Hunt, a three-year player for the Mustang varsity, will eventually score, but simply how he is scoring them. At 6-foot-5, he is a big man in local prep circles who has the tenacity to bang the boards and the bodies in close. But he also has the deft touch of a shooting guard from 3-point range. He should. He”s been shooting long-range jumpers in his yard since he was six.
His 15 treys speak to the ability of this big man.
“In the post he has great footwork and he knows how to steal and how to get the ball to the basket,” Mullin said, “and he”s an excellent perimeter shooter, which makes him an all-round player.”
Hunt is a hybrid who, with the possible exception of point guard, could play well at any position and has. Problem is, he can”t play them all at the same time, which is about the only way the Mustangs might have a winning season, because after Hunt there is a precipitous dropoff to the team”s next-best player.
The team suits up only eight players, but it is not a “give-up” unit, Mullin insists. Hope — spurred by a last-second 3-pointer by Hunt that beat Clear Lake — springs eternal. And the Mustangs are only down one game — an overtime loss to Willits — in league play.
Through a statistical looking glass, it breaks down like this: Hunt has consistently led the Mustangs with his 22-points-per-game average, including four games in which he has topped 30. But on only five occasions has the next-best player scored in double digits.
It”s a little like baseball”s Steve Carlton notching 27 victories for the last-place 1972 Philadelphia Phillies.
“We”ve been looking all year for other players who could take a little pressure off Tyler, but we haven”t found that player yet,” ” Mullin confesses. “We start two sophomores and have three (and at times four) on the team. We have certain players who come up, but not consistently. We”re working on that in every practice.”
. . . Which adds up to another remarkable facet of what Hunt is doing this season. Degree of difficulty. When Hunt”s on the floor, there is no such thing as one-on-one or zones. He draws defenders like horses draw horse flies. Because of his scoring ability, such has always been the case, but never moreso than this season.
On a scale of 1 to 10, says Hunt, the attention he gets this year as compared to last season is “nineish.”
“I”m constantly double- and triple-teamed,” he acknowledged.
“I don”t think it bothers him,” Mullin said. “It gets pretty physical inside and he gets hammered pretty good. They do everything they can to keep him from scoring and they”re happy holding him to 20 points. It”s all part of the game. We”re not getting all the (foul) calls, but that”s the way it goes sometimes. Tyler gets a little motivated, but he”s very even-tempered. He never complains about it. “
Not even when, as was the case in Willits last week, someone was clutching his jersey, or when an opponent planted his forearm in his spine for an entire game.
“There”s nothing I can do about it,” Hunt shrugged over such shenanigans. “It should be called, but it isn”t.”
He rarely dishes it back because he knows it could lead to foul trouble, something Middletown can ill afford this season. He has fouled out of a game only once all season.
More than this separates Hunt from his peers. He is also a 3.9 GPA student who is happiest when juggling mathematical equations and is presently enmeshed in AP calculus. Asked what he intends to do career-wise, he says, “I don”t know, but it will be something involving math.”
With his flowing beard, which makes him appear a decade older than his 17 years, Hunt looks like a mathematician.
Said Mullin: “He could play somewhere, but he”s more of a scholastic kid who is interested in getting into the biggest school he can get into. I think he”s already been accepted at Chico, Sacramento State and one other college, and he”s looking at (UC) Davis.”
Hunt said he is considering Davis, Humboldt State and UC-Santa Cruz as formal college possibilities.
“I”ll probably try to walk on,” he adds regarding playing at the college level, “but its not my number one priority.”
His one regret is that for various reasons the Mustangs haven”t played to the level they did during his sophomore year. That was the season when, as a stand-in for injured team leader Josh Gipson on a playoff team, he burst onto the scene with a 27-point performance against Fort Bragg.
“I would like to win some games,” he said.
