Taking the Point : Kevin Augustine Has Stepped Up to Provide Leadership, Scoring for Mater Dei

It’s not often that a point guard, whose job it is to direct the offense, is the team’s leading scorer. But it’s not as rare for him to be the team’s best player.

Kevin Augustine is both for the Mater Dei boys’ basketball team.

The top-ranked Monarchs (17-1) would not be riding a 17-game winning streak without the timely heroics of Augustine, the only returning starter from last season’s state Division I championship team.

Twice this season Augustine, 16, has established personal highs in points scored, and both times his accomplishments came in high-profile games.

He scored 37 points in a 76-71 double-overtime victory over Las Vegas Bishop Gorman in the quarterfinals of the Holiday Prep Classic. Against Tustin in the championship game of the Orange Holiday Classic, Augustine scored 39 in a 75-65 overtime victory.

Augustine also scored the tying basket at the end of regulation in both games.

“Overall, I think he’s the best point guard we’ve ever had,” Monarch Coach Gary McKnight said. “Even as a junior, he can do it all.”

Major praise when you consider the top-flight point guards who have played at Mater Dei, including Reggie Geary and Miles Simon, who make up the backcourt at Arizona; Tom Peabody, who played at Loyola Marymount; Chris Patton, who guided the Monarchs to the 1987 state championship, and Matt Beewseart, who went on to Notre Dame.

The attributes Augustine brings to Mater Dei can--and cannot--be measured.

Physically, the 6-foot, 150-pound Augustine has hummingbird quickness and great leaping ability. (In fact, he usually jumps center at opening tipoffs.) He’s just as dangerous from three-point range as he is speeding through the lane for a layup.

“I’ve always said it’s better to have a great point guard than a great big man,” McKnight said. “A great point guard will always keep you in the game.”

Augustine also is the team’s calming influence. Mater Dei lost several key seniors to graduation and its top player, Schea Cotton, transferred back to Bellflower St. John Bosco.

The Monarchs are Augustine’s team now.

“The coaches have told me I have the green light; I can pretty much do what I want to do,” Augustine said. “I’m one of three captains--David Castleton and Jason Vallas are the others--and I feel being the returning starter from last year and being on varsity for three years, I have the most experience. It’s a pretty big responsibility, but I enjoy it.

“Sometimes the coaches ask me to kick a guy in the butt a little more, and I do. But I do it in a different way, being more positive. I might say something with force in my voice to get their attention, but I try to stay away from being negative.”

Augustine credits many for making him the player he is.

His athletic gifts, he said, come from his father, Lucky, who played football at Cal and professionally in Canada. (Augustine isn’t the only talented offspring; sister Tatum, 15, a sophomore at Mater Dei, is only the second freshman to make make school’s varsity dance team.)

Augustine said Bennie Poda, a former professional bodybuilder who lives in San Clemente, has put him through a mental and physical training program the past three years to further develop his skills. And Simon was a major influence on Augustine, on and off the court.

“I knew him [Simon] way before I was playing at Mater Dei,” Augustine said. “When I was a freshman and he was a senior, he took me under his wing.

“Everything was so different; I was pretty small and everybody else was much bigger. He kicked my butt every day in practice, but he taught me the game.”

Mater Dei is fortunate to have him. Many expected Augustine to attend Brea Olinda, because he lives in the district. But Lucky said Augustine had always attended parochial schools, and the high school choice came down to Mater Dei or Servite.

“When I asked where he wanted to go, he said wanted to play against the very best,” Lucky Augustine said. “I admired that. And although Brea is doing very well now, they weren’t at the time.”

For those who may be surprised by Augustine’s 21.5-point scoring average this season, it’s probably because last season he was primarily a passer, averaging 5.3 assists per game.

His selflessness was precisely what the Monarchs needed. Mater Dei had plenty of firepower in Cotton, Shaun Jackson and Clay McKnight. What they needed was someone who was willing to get them the ball.

“Last year, he had Cotton on one side, the coach’s kid on the other side and Jackson down the middle,” McKnight said. “And it was pretty demanding to try and keep all those guys happy and try to win at the same time.

“But last year helped his game as point guard because he had to give up the ball. And with Cotton leaving, it’s given him and some of the other guys on this team a chance to step up and get noticed. I think he would have blossomed no matter what, knowing what type of kid and what type of player he is, but now he’s even more in the spotlight.”

Augustine said it “wasn’t easy” to always think pass first and shoot later, but he was willing to do whatever his coaches wanted if it meant winning.

“Coach McKnight told me, ‘Kevin, you can average 20 points a game, but if you do the team’s not going to be as successful. Play your role this way, giving up the ball to the other guys, and we can probably win the state championship,’ ” Augustine said.

Whether Mater Dei can repeat as state champions this season is debatable. Despite the winning streak (their only loss was to Virginia’s Oak Hill Academy, 51-45, in the season opener), the Monarchs are not the overpowering machine they were last season.

Many of the players, up from last year’s junior varsity team, are young and don’t always play cohesively. They are more apt to win by three than 30.

But Mater Dei already has defeated Tustin and Esperanza, ranked second and third in the latest Orange County sportswriters’ poll. And the Monarchs enter South Coast play tonight having won their last 30 league games. They host Dana Hills at the Bren Center.

“They’re beatable without [Augustine]. With him it’s awful tough,” Tustin Coach Andy Ground said. “You must make him shoot from the outside and hope for the best. If he hits it, make him beat you that way. But that was our game plan and he beat us.”

Augustine should have little difficulty advancing to the next level. He already has scored a 960 on his SAT--”I want to take it again and go over 1,000,” he said--and has college coaches eagerly waiting to recruit him when he becomes a senior.

“Right now Kevin is looking for somebody to say ‘We appreciate you,’ “Lucky said. No one school has an inside track, but Augustine likes Stanford, Duke, Kentucky and UCLA.

But this season comes first. And Augustine does not expect to wilt in the spotlight of playing for the county’s most visible basketball program.

“People say there’s a lot of pressure to play at Mater Dei,” Augustine said. “I don’t feel any pressure at all. I just want to go out there and have fun, play hard, try to win. That’s the same attitude everyone on the team has.

“I don’t know about our coaches, they might have pressure, but as far as the players, I don’t think we have any pressure on us at all.”

Instead, they’re applying it to their opponents.