2023 Michigan Mr. Basketball: Tyler Jamison, Port Huron Northern

When told that at an upcoming event Port Huron Northern senior Tyler Jamison would be required to give a speech, Jamison seemed apprehensive.

That speech is often the most worrisome aspect of the ceremony for the eventual winner.

Jamison said he has taken a speech class as well as a broadcasting class. Then Jamison was asked if those were advanced placement classes.

“No,” Jamison said, before kiddingly adding: “The only problem with them is they are bringing my GPA down.”

Jamison has a 4.7 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale, thanks to 14 advanced placement classes.

And now Jamison is the 43rd winner of the Hal Schram Mr. Basketball award, thanks to the overwhelming support of the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan voters.

Jamison is the runaway winner of the most prestigious award a male high school athlete in Michigan can receive.

He earned 445 of the 1,186 first-place votes cast. BCAM members are required to vote for three candidates and points are awarded on a 5-3-1 basis.

Jamison finished with 3,058 points followed by Curtis Williams of Birmingham Brother Rice (2,004) and Grand Rapids Catholic Central’s Kaden Brown (1.918). Sonny Wilson of U-D Jesuit (1.883) and North Farmington’s Ryan Hurst (1,811).

The award is named for the late Hal Schram, who covered high school athletics for the Free Press for over 40 years.

This season Jamison, 6 feet 5, averaged an overwhelming 26.7 points, 11.6 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 3.3 steals and last fall he signed a letter of intent to play at Fairleigh Dickinson, which also made some news last week.

When his father, Brian, who is also the Northern coach, told him he was Mr. Basketball, Jamison wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“I haven’t been able to stop smiling for the last few days,” he said. “It’s a dream come true. You always feel like: ‘Oh, I think I deserve to win,’ but you never know how it’s going to play out.”

It began to play out for him following his opening game in middle school.

“I was always a little bigger than everybody else and in the first game of middle school I scored 50 points,” he said. “After that I was feeling myself like — What’s stopping me from being along with all these other guys? Why can’t that be me?”

It could and it is.

By middle school, Jamison was an AAU veteran and he played against all of the top players in the state’s class of 2023. Truthfully he didn’t see much difference between his game and his other star classmates.

“I just kind of felt I had all of the tools that can make me successful,” he said. “I can get in the gym whenever I want. I have access to some great basketball minds. I’ve got pretty good size, I’m pretty knowledgeable. Why couldn’t it be me as opposed to anyone else? What do they have that I don’t have?”

Not much, which became evident to BCAM members as he moved on to high school and became even more dominant.

That is when his father began buying in to the possibility that the elder of his two sons might become a player of consequence.

“I think even after his freshman year, I thought he could be one of the better players in the state,” he said. “I don’t know that I ever targeted Mr. Basketball, per se. But after his sophomore year, he averaged about 25 points a game and his junior year, he averaged 29 a game. Then it became, 'Ya know, he might have a chance.'”

But every time he made a case for why his son could deserve the award he was hit with the reality that each year a number of exceptional player don’t even make the ballot.

There is a difference between being an all-state player and a Mr. Basketball finalist.

“I think I always tempered my expectations because it’s just hard to even be in the top five, let alone get the votes to win it,” his father said. “So I don’t ever think I was ever worried about it. And then this year as the year was going on and people were talking about it then you sort of start thinking why not? Why not him?”

Why not, indeed. Jamison has had a spectacular senior season, including a 59-point effort in a 10-point win over Warren Cousino.

“What he does in a high school basketball game? He does it all,” his father said. “I know all the other kids that were nominated and they’re all such good kids and good people. It’s one of those things that I would have been fine with whoever got it.”

Three years ago there were a number of high-level players, but some of them fell by the wayside when they seemed to peak too early and didn’t improve much after that.

Jamison never peaked out and enjoyed an insane senior season.

“Every year he picked up a little extra,” his father said. “He got a little stronger or jumped a little better or developed other parts of his game. He just constantly worked on it — his ball handling, his shooting. Each year he progressed to what he is now.”

Helping him to get to where he is now is his overall athletic ability, which he came by naturally. He dunked for the first time in eighth grader and there were only two games this season he didn’t have a dunk.

He played a variety of sports — soccer, baseball, tennis, swimming, flag football — but not necessarily on organized teams.

“When you’re in elementary school you’re not doing much sport-specific training,” Jamison said. “I love getting a bunch of friends from the neighborhood and going to the backyards and playing stuff.”

An affable youngster with a self-deprecating sense of humor, Jamison loves poking fun at himself. When someone jokingly suggest the only way he could have won the award is that BCAM used Dominion voting machines.

“Does that mean Mr. Pillow is coming?” he asked. “Stop the count.”

But in a serious moment he acknowledged his is the best thing to happen to him and he is extremely honored to be Mr. Basketball.

“Another thing that brings me a lot of pride is that I’m the first Mr. Basketball winner from my area, St. Clair County,” he said. “It means a lot that people give St. Clair County the respect that they deserve as far as basketball goes.

“I feel that hasn’t always been the case. I’m extremely proud of that and I hope people in my area take pride in that, too.”

Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1. Save $10 on his new book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” by ordering right now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com.

Welcome to the club

Here are the 42 previous winners of the Hal Schram Mr. Basketball Award:

2022 Chansey Willis, Detroit King (Saginaw Valley State)

2021 Pierre Brooks, Detroit Douglass (Michigan State)

2020 Carlos (Scooby) Johnson, Benton Harbor (Butler)

2019 Romeo Weems, New Haven (De Paul)

2018 Foster Loyer, Clarkston (Michigan State)

2017 Isaiah Livers, Kalamazoo Central (Michigan)

2016 Cassius Winston, U-D Jesuit (Michigan State)

2015 Deyonta Davis, Muskegon (Michigan State)

2014 Deshaun Thrower, Muskegon (Stony Brook)

2013 Monte Morris, Flint Beecher (Iowa State)

2012 Matt Costello, Bay City Western (Michigan State)

2011 Dwaun Anderson, Suttons Bay (Wagner)

2010 Keith Appling, Detroit Pershing (Michigan State)

2009 Derrick Nix, Detroit Pershing (Michigan State)

2008 Brad Redford, Frankenmuth (Xavier)

2007 Corperryale (Manny) Harris, Detroit Redford (Michigan)

2006 David Kool, Grand Rapids South Christian (Western Michigan)

2005 Wilson Chandler, Benton Harbor (De Paul)

2004 Drew Neitzel, Wyoming Park (Michigan State)

2003 Dion Harris, Detroit Redford (Michigan)

2002 Paul Davis, Rochester (Michigan State)

2001 Kelvin Torbert, Flint Northwestern (Michigan State)

2000 Marcus Taylor, Lansing Waverly (Michigan State)

1999 Jason Richardson, Saginaw Arthur Hill (Michigan State)

1998 Dane Fife, Clarkston (Indiana)

1997 Shane Battier, Birmingham Detroit Country Day (Duke)

1996 Winfred Walton, Detroit Pershing (Syracuse, Fresno State)

1995 Robert Traylor, Detroit Murray-Wright (Michigan)

1994 Willie Mitchell, Detroit Pershing (Michigan, UAB)

1993 Jon Garavaglia, Southgate Aquinas (Michigan State)

1992 Kenyon Murray, Battle Creek Central (Iowa)

1991 Chris Webber, Birmingham Detroit Country Day (Michigan)

1990 Anthony Miller, Benton Harbor (Michigan State)

1989 Michael Talley, Detroit Cooley (Michigan)

1988 Matt Steigenga, Grand Rapids South Christian (Michigan State)

1987 Mark Macon, Saginaw Buena Vista (Temple)

1986 Terry Mills, Romulus (Michigan)

1985 Glen Rice, Flint Northwestern (Michigan)

1984 Demetreus Gore, Detroit Chadsey (Pittsburgh)

1983 Antoine Joubert, Detroit Southwestern (Michigan)

1982 Robert Henderson, Lansing Eastern (Michigan)

1981 Sam Vincent, Lansing Eastern (Michigan State)

The votes are in

Here are the results of the 43rd annual Hal Schram Mr. Basketball award, given by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan. Only BCAM members are permitted to vote:

1. Tyler Jamison, Port Huron Northern: 3,058 points

2. Curtis Williams, Birmingham Brother Rice: 2,004 points

3. Kaden Brown, Grand Rapids Catholic Central: 1,918 points

4. Sonny Wilson, U-D Jesuit: 1,883 points

5. Ryan Hurst, North Farmington: 1,811 points

(Points are awarded on a 5-3-1 basis.)

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 2023 Michigan Mr. Basketball: Tyler Jamison, Port Huron Northern