Sun All-State Basketball: Brimmer carried load at Durango

Spencer Patterson

Tuesday, March 7, 2000 | 10:33 a.m.

When Al LaRocque got the news that star guard Chey Christie had moved to Biloxi, Miss., last summer, the Durango basketball coach reacted with a rather strange statement.

"Losing Chey hurts, but we'd be dead if we lost Jamaal," LaRocque said, referring to guard Jamaal Brimmer, the Sun's 2000 Boys Basketball State Player of the Year.

Considering Christie was generally regarded as one of Nevada's top two or three college prospects and Brimmer was known more for his football exploits than his feats on the hardwood, LaRocque's words seemed odd.

But after a 1999-2000 season that saw Brimmer emerge as the most valuable player on a Trailblazer squad that reached this year's 4A state title game, it's clear the Durango coach knew exactly what he was talking about last August.

"Chey was a great talent, but he was young and just learning to compete," LaRocque said. "Jamaal flat-out competes every day. Without him, we're probably a .500 team this year."

As a junior on a talent-rich Durango squad last year, Brimmer's role was well-defined: instant offense. Whether he came off the bench or started, he was expected to provide an offensive spark, be it with a long 3-pointer or a hard-nosed drive through traffic.

With the graduation of point guard Rudy Charles and leading scorer Jason Burns and the loss of Christie, however, Brimmer's job changed. As a senior, the 6-1 guard would be asked to provide not only offense, but also ball-handling, rebounding and the bulk of Durango's leadership.

"I knew the team was going to change totally when Chey left," Brimmer said. "I had to be the motivator and the guy who controlled the game."

Coming off a football season that saw him dominate both sides of the ball as the Blazers' quarterback and starting safety, no one in town questioned Brimmer's athletic ability.

But there were lingering questions about whether USA Today's Nevada Football Player of the Year could produce similar results on the basketball court.

After a strong preseason, Brimmer put all doubts to rest in his team's league opener at Bishop Gorman -- the consensus favorite to win it all in 2000. Showing the type of fearlessness that helped him earn a football scholarship to UNLV, the senior led his club to a stunning 73-72 victory over the state's top-ranked team, hitting the winning free throw with 0.1 seconds remaining.

"We stressed that he was a senior and it was his time to step up," LaRocque said.

Brimmer continued to impress as the season wore on, helping his club to a 20-7 regular-season record, averaging 18 points and five rebounds and garnering the Sunset Region's MVP honor from conference coaches.

The playoffs are where big-time players earn their reputations, though, and Brimmer certainly did that in Nevada's postseason.

In his club's biggest game of the year -- a do-or-die contest against Western in the Sunset Region Tournament semifinals -- he scored eight points in a first-quarter offensive explosion that all but locked up Durango's spot in the 4A state tournament.

After helping the Blazers capture the Sunset title with another upset of top-ranked Gorman, Brimmer got a chance to shine on the state's biggest stage, and didn't disappoint.

In three state tournament games, the senior racked up 72 points, including a 30-point effort to spearhead his club's semifinal win over South Tahoe and get it into the championship against Gorman.

Although Durango lost the title game 81-70 in overtime, Brimmer's accomplishments were more than enough to earn him this year's award.

To be sure, he got help from his teammates, most notably sophomore Martrel Johnson, another Sun all-state first-teamer. But when all was said and done, LaRocque's words from last summer rang true: it was hard to imagine where Durango might have been without Jamaal Brimmer.

"He was our do-it-all guy," LaRocque said. "He did absolutely everything for us this year."