From Walk-on to Starter, Kamateros fueling Coyotes' win streak

Tasos Kamateros is from Athens, Greece, and his first love as an athlete was tennis. He was 3-years-old at the time and had a heck of a career progressing in the sport until he was about five.

There were other sports, too. When you don’t grow up with baseball or American football as options, you get a chance to look around a little bit. He tried soccer and water polo as well, but basketball was a different deal entirely.

“My dad thought I should try all the sports – if you like sports why not try all of them?” Kamateros said. “So my dad took me to a basketball court and that was it. I never had another favorite sport.”

The 6-8, 240-pound sophomore was a walk-on for the Coyotes last season. He got into 13 games a year ago and showed promise as a Division I player in spite of adjusting to college and the language and the American college version of the game he loved.

The adjustment continues but it’s starting to look like the Coyotes got a real find on their hands this season.

During the Coyotes’ 6-0 start in the Summit League – they’re playing Omaha in back-to-back games Friday and Saturday at the Sanford Coyote Sports Center – Kamateros is averaging more than 25 minutes a game. In his last two contests, he went for 15 points in a win over Western Illinois in a Friday game and then came back with career-high 21 points in a win over the Leathernecks on Saturday.

To get that kind of production out of a former walk-on is good stuff. It promises to get better, too, as the Coyotes continue to develop a consistent scoring punch beyond Stanley Umude and A.J. Plitzuweit.

How does a guy from Greece get a gig at a school in the United States? Well, it helps to know people. In Kamateros’ case, it was Lance Berwald, an all-time great at North Dakota State in the early 1980s who helped get him set up with possible opportunities.

Berwald spent more than a decade playing in Europe and, as someone familiar with college basketball in the Midwest, gave Kamateros assistance in seeking out a school where he’d be comfortable and could contribute.

The search ended with a visit to USD. Much like when Kamateros knew basketball was going to be his sport when he was six years old, he knew USD was going to be his school.

Different decade, maybe, but with the same level of conviction.

Kamateros figured out immediately last year that there was going to have to be some adjustments made. He was big guy, but not athletic enough to do what he’s doing this year.

So he went to work on getting stronger, faster and quicker. He returned to Greece after last season with a scholarship, but also instructions from Lee to tighten things up physically.

“He knew what he had to do,” Lee said. “He had to improve his body. He did that, and I know he’s going to continue to do that. Last year I think he could barely dunk a basketball. Now he dunks everything.”

With three years of eligibility remaining after this season, Kamateros looks to be pointed toward a bright future in his time at USD. That’s something to look forward to, of course, but things are going pretty well already. In short, this is fun stuff.

Kamateros definitely has an accent but his English has improved immensely since he moved to the United States. He rarely pauses to find the words, for one thing, and his grammar is excellent. Like his basketball, improving his English is a challenge he’s attacked with enthusiasm and intelligence.

“I’m not going to lie – it was a little weird when I got here,” he said. “But I got used to it. I got to know more people outside the team and got more comfortable speaking English. Right now I don’t feel like I’m in a different place, I feel like this is a second home for me.”

Kamateros then explained what it’s like to learn a new language.

“In Greece you have to learn English,” he said. “You learn how to write it, read it and speak it. But it’s different in real life when you’re talking person-to-person. I wasn’t real confident about talking when I got here. I was thinking too much in Greek. I was translating all the words but I wasn’t thinking in English. Now I really don’t even think about it. I just say what I want to say.”

After last season, there was one particular day where he was struggling to find the words, however.

During a season-ending meeting with Lee he listened to the coach tell him about how his first year had gone. He heard about his strengths and the things he needed to work on. Then he heard about the scholarship. As a walk-on to that point whose family had done a lot to get him to the U.S., being able to lessen the financial load was exactly what he wanted to hear.

And when he heard it, he went nuts. At least inside.

“It was a big accomplishment in my life,” he said. “It was a big goal for me with the way my family sacrificed so much to allow me to come over here.”

After the meeting ended, Kamateros made a call to his dad. The Coyote coach can’t speak Greek, but in this case he didn’t need to.

“There was so much emotion – he was so excited,” Lee said. “I couldn’t understand what they were saying, of course, but he was very happy. He’s such a great person, a great student and a great kid. He deserved a scholarship. And I’ll never forget the day I told him that.”