Bob McKenney describes DaJuan Coleman’s persona as a quiet self-confidence.

As McKenney’s Jamesville-DeWitt boy’s basketball team warmed up prior to its state championship game earlier this year, the head coach McKenney surveyed the scene. He watched as his players went through their typical pregame routine before his eyes fell upon his star big man.

‘Is everything all right, DaJuan?’ McKenney asked the 6-foot-8, 290-pound center.

‘Let’s just go get it done,’ Coleman said.

And Coleman got it done. He scored 22 points and pulled in 16 rebounds to lead Jamesville-DeWitt to its fourth straight Class A state championship, Coleman’s third in three years with the Red Rams.

‘He just has that quality,’ McKenney said in a phone interview. ‘Let’s just go get it done. We can X and O, talk about this, talk about that, but at the end of the day, we have to go out and play.’

Coleman has been one of the most sought-after recruits in the country since he was in eighth grade. He played for Fowler High as a 6-foot-7 eighth-grader before transferring to Jamesville-DeWitt for his freshman year. Coleman has remained among the top prospects in the nation as he has honed his low-post skills and grown into his massive frame. According to Scout.com, he currently has Division I offers from Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio State, West Virginia and Syracuse as he enters his senior year at J-D.

‘What stands out is that he is so big and he plays like he’s big,’ said Scout.com national recruiting analyst Brian Snow. ‘I can’t say you’re surprised when you watch him. He’s kind of what you hope for him to be and what you want him to be.’

Coleman did not return multiple phone calls, but McKenney said the center has been that typical big man since he first started coaching him as a freshman.

Back then, Coleman was still adjusting to his size. Both Snow and McKenney said he wasn’t quite out of shape but he still had some ‘baby fat’ on him. And with his size and inexperience at that point, his game was all power and strength.

‘It was a lot of times just overpowering people at that point,’ McKenney said. ‘Now he’s learning to play with a little more finesse and how to use that strength, not have to work quite so hard to get the same shot that he used to get.’

But before those skills developed, Coleman took a backseat to senior guards Brandon Triche, now a starter for SU, and Alshwan Hymes, who played in every game for Canisius last year.

McKenney said Coleman picked up some of his quiet confidence from Triche. The head coach said the experience of being a secondary option as a freshman helped him stay humble, despite all the attention he received.

‘He played his role,’ McKenney said. ‘He could have come in and commanded the ball a lot more than he did, but he just kind of slid in and accepted that he was a freshman playing with two great players.’

Triche and Hymes led J-D to a state championship that year. But since then, Coleman has become the main attraction. He demands the ball now on the rare occasion his teammates aren’t feeding him down low.

Kentucky head coach John Calipari was at the state championship this year to watch Coleman perform. Scout.com currently ranks Coleman as the No. 3 center in the Class of 2012. He scored 21.7 points per game for the Red Rams last year.

Snow said Coleman was ‘definitely college-ready’ and compared him to first-team All-American Jared Sullinger from Ohio State.

‘He’s probably not going to come in and put Jared Sullinger numbers up,’ Snow said. ‘But like Jared, he has a college-ready body, a college-ready physique, a college-ready game.

‘And he’s going to make an immediate impact on college basketball.’

McKenney has watched Coleman grow from that overpowering freshman to the college-ready player Snow described. He said Coleman has put in the time to develop his skills in the paint. And even if the center doesn’t influence the college game immediately through scoring, McKenney believes he will do so through defense and rebounding.

But Coleman hasn’t reached his full potential just yet.

Coleman did knock down two 3-pointers in the state championship game last year, but McKenney said his perimeter game can get better. Snow said he could add some explosion and improve his footwork.

And though Coleman’s potential is intriguing to scouts, he is a top recruit because of his play on the court.

‘At the end of the day, it’s about what do you get done,’ Snow said. ‘DaJuan Coleman gets a lot done on the floor to go along with being a good prospect going forward. He’s not shrinking, he’s not getting smaller, so you know he’s always going to have that size and physicality for him to go along with being a super productive player.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on May 10, 2011 at 12:00 pm