Tiki Mayben knew his expectation as a 15-year-old: become one of the best basketball players from Central New York in recent history.

And he knew exactly where to make his name – at the school he dreamt of playing at since as early as he could remember, Syracuse.

His first college letter came from SU. The summer after he was named the No. 1-rated high school freshman in 2001 by Clark Francis of Hoop Scoop Online, he visited the SU campus and played pick-up with Gerry McNamara and Hakim Warrick. He fed Warrick an alley-oop pass.

He was coming to Syracuse to play basketball. But it never happened.

‘Some kids at that age, they’re basketball players,’ said Jim Hart, Mayben’s Amateur Athletic Union coach. ‘Not high school students.

‘Usually committing earlier helps you academically, but the focus of being too much too soon is what hurt him. What do you do when the magazines say you’re the No. 1 player regardless of position as a 15-year-old?’

Here’s what Mayben did: He got kicked off his high school team twice. He lasted six days at prep school. He returned to his original high school and earned a 2.0 grade-point average his senior year. Nonetheless, he thought his SAT and GPA would be high enough to attend SU. He was wrong.

Mayben’s dream didn’t stand a chance.

Everyone knew who he was – for all the wrong reasons. The often-troubled guard made headlines for his play on the court and his antics off of it. But until late in his senior year of high school, it was still believed Mayben would bring the hype with him to Syracuse.

Now, a year after he didn’t qualify academically, Mayben finds himself back in basketball – at Massachusetts.

It’s the beginning of a four-year journey everyone around him hopes will be decidedly less dramatic than the past five.

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Mayben wants to believe Syracuse was after him, but he isn’t sure how committed SU was near the end of the process.

‘There would be some times – months even – when I wouldn’t hear from (SU men’s basketball head coach Jim) Boeheim or (SU men’s basketball assistant Mike) Hopkins,’ Mayben said last week. ‘I know there was a lot of miscommunication.’

Mayben was originally a part of SU’s recruiting class of 2005, along with Eric Devendorf and Arinze Onuaku. He signed his letter of intent on Nov. 30, 2004. Mayben had hoped to join former AAU teammate Dayshawn Wright on the Orange. Wright played in 10 games during his freshman year but was declared academically ineligible last season and consequentially left SU.

But Mayben said Syracuse basketball did not properly inform him of his status until the very last minute.

‘I never knew what was going down until two days before graduation,’ Mayben said. ‘Hopkins called me and said that off of my SAT score and GPA, I didn’t have enough to qualify.’

Boeheim denied everything Mayben said.

‘We spent more time with Tiki Mayben than 10 other schools did,’ Boeheim said. ‘I told Tiki we would stay with him as long as he got his grades. He should have known better than anyone that he wouldn’t qualify.’

Hart saw SU’s persistence in Mayben over the three-year period (‘Syracuse never wavered in their commitment to him,’ he said), but tends to side with Mayben on the way it ended.

‘We thought all along he would get a 2.5,’ Hart said. ‘The eligibility wasn’t that much of a question. But as it got closer and he got interim reports, we realized it would come down to the last minute.

‘What (Mayben’s) saying is accurate. But if Syracuse did something wrong to Tiki, I’d be pissed. If I thought something wrong was done on Boeheim’s or Hop’s part, I would have told them.’

Mayben was plenty good enough to play at Syracuse, but he was only halfway there academically. His SAT grade made the cut comfortably, but he never went to class. He routinely skipped tests. He refused to attend prep school. His senior-year 2.0 GPA wasn’t nearly enough to qualify.

Boeheim, surprised and confused by Mayben’s remarks, reaffirmed not only the school’s previous interest in the guard but his own dedication to Mayben’s future. He said Syracuse passed up numerous point guards because of its faith in Mayben.

‘In his senior year I talked to his high school coach who was going to cut him from the team,’ Boeheim said. ‘I was his biggest supporter over two years. I have close friends who live in Albany who told me I was nuts.’

Boeheim said he received plenty of letters from Albany alumni persuading him not to pursue Mayben. Hart often times had encounters with people who didn’t like the attention he devoted to Mayben.

After all, he was kicked off the Troy High School team twice.

‘He always had a chip on his shoulder and had to prove something,’ Hart said. ‘The worst thing that happened was those early rankings. He didn’t want media exposure.’

During his sophomore season, Mayben was suspended indefinitely by Troy head coach Jeff Sitterly after a verbal exchange with a fan following a loss in the championship game of a tournament in Sitterly’s hometown. Hart said Sitterly was embarrassed by Mayben, but it wasn’t Mayben’s fault at all. The remarks made by the fan were believed to be racially motivated.

‘The guy that was heckling (Mayben) got into his face,’ Hart said. ‘Tiki started pointing into the stands and the coach ran out. Instead of shaking hands, Tiki was pointing at the heckler. The coach told Tiki to turn in his uniform. He was embarrassed.’

The superintendent of the Troy schools later overruled the decision to remove Mayben from the team. Sitterly left Troy after the season and Mayben was reinstated.

But it left a bad taste in Mayben’s mouth. He explored a transfer to another school during the summer. He was offered a spot at the prestigious Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, but Mayben wanted to be closer to home. The closest school that offered him the best opportunity was none other than CNY powerhouse Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse.

The transfer process set off yet another media firestorm. The Albany Times-Union learned of Mayben’s intent to transfer to CBA and published a story the day he and his mother were scheduled to meet with school officials. Four days later, Mayben was rejected by CBA.

Hart, who was quoted in the story, said looking back on the situation, it was ‘the worst thing I ever saw in my life.’

‘If you print a big story, a million CBA alums are going to call in and make judgments,’ Hart said. ‘Two days later the Times-Union runs in a big headline: ‘Mayben rejected at CBA.’

‘It had nothing to do with sports. It gave (Mayben) a distrust of the media.’

With nowhere else to go, Mayben returned to Troy for his junior year. Under a new head coach, he looked for a fresh start at the school. On Dec. 5, 2003, Mayben formally announced his verbal commitment to Syracuse in front of 30 friends, family and officials. He averaged 22.3 points per game to start his junior season.

But 46 days later, he quit the Troy basketball team. Following a 24-point loss at CBA on Jan. 20, 2004, Mayben refused to travel back to Troy with the team. He left his jersey in the locker room at CBA and broke a team rule by not riding the bus back home.

‘Between the CBA meltdown and his antics on the court, he did not finish on a good note,’ Hart said. ‘He was sitting on the end of the bench when the game was over.’

The next step for Mayben was to find someplace he could play basketball and take his classes. Through Hart’s networking, he found a spot for Mayben at Winchendon Prep in Massachusetts on Jan. 29, 2004.

He stayed six days.

‘After the first 30 minutes of practice, he took himself out,’ Winchendon coach Mike Burns said. ‘The next day he came up to me and said, ‘Coach, this isn’t the place for me.”

‘If he stays there, he would have gotten the grades and would be at Syracuse right now,’ Hart said.

Burns and Hart believe the strict structure of prep school and the discipline were like nothing Mayben had ever encountered. They both pleaded Mayben to ride things out and stay at Winchendon. Burns said there is ‘no question’ Mayben would have gotten his grades if he stayed.

But he didn’t. Mayben’s sister drove up and brought him back home to Troy. Burns never spoke to him again – that is, until he saw him at a UMass training camp in Amherst.

Hart said Mayben was the result of too much attention at home, in a time when the majority of inner-city kids can’t find enough.

He lived in a house under an overpass in Troy, but Hart said it was well-kept. There was nothing around it, just remains of demolished, older buildings. So Mayben relied on the people within the house – his entire family. Mayben lived with his mother, sister, grandparents, and until his recent death, his uncle.

‘They babied the hell out of him,’ Hart said.

Hart recalled one time when he rushed his AAU team back from a road game because the next day was a school day. He called Troy that day because he wanted to talk to Mayben – but Mayben was at home. His mom said he was too tired to go to school.

This, Hart thinks, is what cost Mayben the chance to play at Syracuse. Mayben was not only complacent and bored at the high school basketball level; it also translated to the classroom. There were days where Mayben would just skip school, no questions asked.

‘He was a victim of too much love at home,’ Hart said. ‘His mom’s not going to yell at him for missing school.’

Mayben’s senior season at Troy in 2004-05 was relatively uneventful. He was suspended four games by Section II officials for violating the district’s transfer rule. But he signed his letter of intent in November 2004, averaged 21.9 points and 10 assists per game and led Troy to the district semifinals.

After choosing to graduate and lock his GPA rather than take a year to qualify at a prep school, Mayben was stuck in the middle before Hart approached UMass in summer 2005.

‘I was ready to go to community college,’ Mayben said. ‘I was signed up at a community college before I talked to (Massachusetts head coach Travis) Ford. It was a blessing in disguise.’

Mayben signed an application to attend Hudson Valley Community College in Troy. He had loans approved and was set to register for classes.

But Hart contacted Ford to gauge his interest in taking on Mayben. One of Mayben’s former AAU teammates, Rashaun Freeman, plays for Ford. Hart coached him, too, and Freeman enrolled at UMass the same way Mayben did. Unlike Syracuse, UMass can accept non-predictors – those who do not qualify at the Division I level.

Ford was well aware of Mayben’s history.

‘We talked about (his past), but history starts here with us,’ Ford said. ‘I’ve heard all kinds of different things, but I’d have to say so far it’s been absolutely terrific.’

Hart was leery about Mayben making it at UMass. As a part of the agreement, Mayben would attend the school as a regular student for one year, paying his own way, in order to qualify academically. Mayben could not participate in any team activities with the Minutemen. He’d sit out a full season from basketball.

‘I told Ford, your goal is to keep him coming back every Monday,’ Hart said. ‘At least during the first semester he went home every weekend. Now he’s really a part of the team.’

‘I didn’t do nothing but go to class,’ Mayben said.

He qualified – by a fair margin. All he needed was a 2.0 and this time he earned it.

On the side, he played intramural basketball against the UMass student body. He trained with his uncle at home during the weekends. And Ford was sure to often check up on Mayben.

‘The whole year he wasn’t out of contact with me,’ Mayben said. ‘The coaches talked to me every other day to make sure I was OK.’

Mayben is considered a freshman on this year’s UMass team. Ford did not bring in another guard to accompany Mayben and incumbent Chris Lowe – that’s how much faith he has in his new point guard.

‘He does some things you just don’t see everyday,’ Ford said. ‘The things he can do with the basketball, he sees plays one or two seconds ahead. He makes everyone around him a better basketball player.’

And now he’s truly happy, you can tell it.

Hart, who still talks to Mayben every week, saw Mayben at home one weekend last year dressed in his UMass jump suit, head-to-toe, which surprised Hart. He said Mayben never liked to show-off.

Minus one life-long dream, Hart sees Mayben starting all over again, something he never though he’d witness. But the message is still the same – just clad in maroon instead of orange.

‘It’s almost like he’s saying, ‘I’m Tiki Mayben, college student. I’m happy this is what I represent.’

‘You can tell what he’s trying to do. He’s going out here and trying to make everyone happy.’

Published on October 3, 2006 at 12:00 pm