On the Rebound : Junior College Transfer Kevin Cutler Is Finding His Niche With 49ers, Averaging 7 Rebounds and 11 Points a Game

The view from the motel room window in Logan, Utah, held snow-covered mountains, but Kevin Cutler, a Cal State Long Beach basketball player, looked toward a TV that showed the Flintstones.

“I like cartoons,” he said, resting his 6-foot-8, 220-pound frame on a bed.

It was mid-afternoon last Thursday, four hours before the 49ers would play Utah State.

“I hate the snow with a passion,” said Cutler, a 21-year-old junior forward who grew up in Pomona. “I like shorts and tank tops.”

So he was trying to endure the cold first leg of a five-day, two-game trip that would conclude in San Jose. The 49ers had flown to Salt Lake City late Wednesday and spent the night there. They rode a bus 84 miles to Logan on Thursday morning, checked into the motel, then went to the Spectrum for a noon practice. At 3:30 p.m. they would eat at an Italian restaurant. Then they would wait to go to the game.

Cutler is adjusting to this regimented life and the tough competition of Division I basketball after transferring a year ago from Arizona Western College, where he averaged 17 points and 14 rebounds and was a junior college all-American.

In his first season with the 49ers, he is leading the team in rebounds with an average of seven a game, and is second in scoring with an 11-point average.

With his short haircut, thin mustache and powerful-looking upper body, Cutler resembles a younger, shorter Wilt Chamberlain.

“I always had broad shoulders,” Cutler said. “I never worked out (with weights) till I got to Long Beach. People thought I played football. I couldn’t stand football.”

He played football, briefly as a sophomore, at Ganesha High School in Pomona.

“Until I got crunched,” he said, laughing. “In practice my teammates blitzed me and hit me just as I was throwing the ball. I took the pads off and walked off the field.”

Cutler can loom as a man among boys on the court, when he leaps with a long arm extended to grab a one-handed rebound, or when he rushes to the offensive backboard to dunk after grabbing a teammate’s missed shot. Coaches like to call these “big-time” plays.

“In junior college, it was kind of easy,” said Cutler, who likes to shoot a soft jumper and a half-hook. “I usually would be going up against a guy 6-6. Now, every night I have to go out and pick myself up because other teams have guys who may be taller or a little stronger than me.”

He has had to adjust in other ways, too. In junior college, he said there were no long trips, on which studying was required. “It’s strictly business here,” he said.

After transferring, Cutler went almost a year without playing. When he began practicing with the team 13 months ago, he was overweight.

“He could hardly make a move inside,” Coach Joe Harrington recalled.

An All-CIF player at Ganesha High, Cutler was recruited by Cal State Fullerton but did not meet the academic requirements under the NCAA’s Prop. 48. Now, as a criminal justice major, he recorded a 3.0 grade-point average last semester, he said.

He spent two seasons at Arizona Western in Yuma, where he enjoyed celebrity status.

“It was an older crowd there,” Cutler said. “They like basketball, they make you feel like a professional athlete. They have a TV station in Yuma. To see yourself on TV a lot made you feel good.”

Cutler would like to play in the NBA. “Coach Harrington says I have a chance,” Cutler said. “But if I don’t make it, I won’t be committing suicide.”

He said he was mistaken for a pro player the day before at the airport. “A guy came up to me and said, ‘Where’s Patrick Ewing and the other guys?’ I told him I don’t play for the Knicks.” The New York Knicks had arrived in Salt Lake City the same day for a game with the Utah Jazz.

Although he looks menacing on the court, Cutler is pleasant, outgoing and upbeat off it.

Harrington remembers watching Cutler in a game at Yuma.

“He got the whole crowd fired up, he was running around, slapping hands with the fans.” Harrington said. “He’s totally positive. He’s serious about being successful.”

Cutler’s main problem, however, other than occasionally missing easy shots, has been a tendency to get in foul trouble. As a result, his playing time has been curtailed drastically in recent games.

“I don’t think I foul,” he said. “It’s frustrating. All you can be is a cheerleader when you’re sitting on the side.”

Seth Greenberg, Harrington’s assistant, believes Cutler is called for so many fouls because of his physical stature and aggressiveness. “His arms are so long that they create like a visual illusion and the refs (believe) that his blocks can’t be clean,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg recruited Cutler at Arizona Western. “He’s a perfect example of our recruiting philosophy,” Greenberg said. “We stopped recruiting him and we befriended him. I think he trusted us.”

“He seemed to be interested in me more as a person than just as a player,” said Cutler, who was also recruited by Oklahoma. “He seemed to care more. He promised my Mom I would graduate. I’ll graduate (a year from) May.”

Greenberg said he is confident his promise will be fulfilled because: “We put him in an environment where education is important, where we know his every move academically.”

Tyrone Mitchell, the 49ers’ senior guard, has had a big influence on Cutler.

“He’s competitive on and off the court, and that’s carried over to me,” Cutler said of Mitchell. “I was upset because I had a 3.0 (GPA). I thought I should have closed the gap more than that.”

That night, in a 79-78 Long Beach victory, Cutler got into foul trouble again and played only 12 minutes. That upset him more than the cold air outside did.

But the next morning, his optimism had returned. He was on the way to San Jose, where a new game and warmer weather awaited.