For UNLV’s Willis, family a foundation on and off court

By Rob Miech (contact)

Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008 | 2:10 a.m.

Justin M. Bowen

Tre’Von Willis of UNLV plays tight defense as Cincinnati brings the ball upcourt Saturday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

UNLV point guard Tre’Von Willis stands with his spine steel straight and keeps solid eye contact with everyone he talks with, just like his mother instilled in him.

Even though the 6-foot-4 sophomore hasn’t stood eye-to-eye with 5-5 Andrea McDonald in years.

“I tell people I’m 5-5,” she said with a laugh from her home in Fresno, Calif. “Actually, I’m 5-4 1/2.

“But I always tell him, when you talk with someone give them eye contact. He is a straight shooter, like his mother. He doesn’t hold back. Just talks from the heart.”

To Willis, the woman who raised him without a husband is 10 feet tall.

“I’m short in stature, but I’m really a go-getter,” McDonald said. “I’m very feisty.”

So that’s where Willis gets his feistiness.

“He does bring an edge to the game,” McDonald said. “That’s just ‘Tre.’ He loves the game and lives by it, in the sense of wanting to be in the right position at the right time. We’re proud of him.

“We just wish him the best when he comes here Wednesday.”

Willis’s ticket requirement is up to 18 for his family reunion Wednesday night, when the Rebels (5-2) play Fresno State (2-3) at the Save Mart Center.

Senior guard Dwight O’Neil, Willis’s older brother, leads the Bulldogs with 30 assists, averages 12 points a game and shoots 42.3 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.

Willis, 20, has led UNLV at the point for its past four games, so the siblings and former Fresno Washington Union High teammates will be rivals come Wednesday.

Siblings or not, ex-teammates or not, an opponent is an opponent to Tre’Von Willis.

He agreed with his mother, that he brings an edge to his team and the game.

“Yeah, you can put it that way, or that I play with a chip on my shoulder,” Willis said. “I want to compete. I don’t let the person in front of me go by me or I’ll beat anyone to a loose ball, things like that.

“That’s just me. I didn’t grow up with all the things everyone else had. My mother loved me. No complaints. That’s why I go out, try to play hard and give it all I got.”

He has required a little extra lately, since a slightly separated right shoulder has been operating, he gauged, at about three-quarter capacity for a while.

To help him sleep at night, Willis got a cortisone injection – the first of his career – in his shoulder Saturday night. He figures it will last a couple of weeks.

“I’m looking forward to our team putting on a clinic, offensively and defensively, in Fresno,” Willis said after practice Monday, “to do what we want and dictate.”

About 10 years passed between Andrea’s divorce from Willis’s father, Jonathan, and her marriage to Aaron McDonald, and that period helped her hone her disciplinarian skills.

Andrea McDonald is the discipline supervisor of a Fresno elementary school.

“Yes, I am immune to being a disciplinarian around the house,” she said. “It really put me in position to communicate with the kids. I give them my trust, in their well-being, and get their trust in return.

“’Tre’ got me ready for it.”

Not that he constantly broke house rules or disobeyed his mother. Seems his one regular indiscretion was always sleeping late.

She thought about getting Tre’Von a special (loud) alarm for UNLV but was told that would be taken care of.

“I was tempted,” McDonald said. “But they have something for him. He’s up and at 'em.”

There was that night after he had turned 16. Willis came home after being gone for hours with an aunt and uncle. McDonald figured something was up.

Then ‘Tre’ walked by her with that “In Tre We Trust” tattoo on his right shoulder.

“He gets home a little after 9,” McDonald said. “I’m looking at him. ‘What have you done?’ My sister and her husband said, ‘Uh oh.’ He said, Mom, it was a birthday gift.

“I flew the coop. I simmered down and said, OK, no more.”

Willis leads the Rebels in tattoos, at around a dozen.

“I don’t think so, because he’s covered right now,” said McDonald, when asked if Tre’Von listened to her. “Wow. No more. I mean, no more. But mom, he said, it’s addicting. And he said they’re all meaningful to him.”

His mother’s first name runs along his right forearm, adorned with rose bushes.

“She said, ‘Boy, what’s that? Hmmm. Well, at least it looks neat,’” said Willis, recalling that first ink etching. “You could tell it wasn’t her cup of tea, me getting a tattoo without her permission.

“I promised her, no more until I turned 18. Then I got a little crazy. I still haven’t told anyone what they all mean. They remind me where I came from, what I grew up with and where I want to be.”

McDonald also ran a restaurant in Willis’s youth but figures she missed maybe five of his high school games.

At Selland Arena, she saw Edison nip Washington Union on a buzzer-beater. Tre’Von clammed up. Typically, they talked after every one of his games. Not this time.

“He was so quiet,” McDonald said. “He sulked. He went to his room, shut the door and it was total darkness. Left him alone. Next morning, he said, Mom, we could have won that game. What happened?

“Losses stick with him.”

The one Friday night against Cal did. He left the Thomas & Mack Center quickly without acknowledging many people.

“Couldn’t get it out of my head,” he said. “It really stuck with me.”

After Saturday’s defeat to Cincinnati, Willis had a close friend to speak with and talk about the disappointing defeats.

Aaron McDonald visited for the weekend.

“Growing up without his dad and with me getting remarried was probably a tough transition for him,” Andrea McDonald said. “Most guys love being their dad’s boy.

“But he had a great foundation, with a grandmother and grandfather, too. And he knows he now has a best friend as well as a stepfather.”

And a mother who couldn’t contain herself when she found out he was transferring from Memphis to UNLV.

She wanted him to make his own decision out of high school. She wanted him to be happy. In her heart, however, she wanted him closer to home so the family could watch him continue to develop.

“I was overwhelmed with joy,” Andrea McDonald said. “I couldn’t have been happier when I got that news. Thank God, my prayers were answered.”