With small-town roots, but big-time hops, Evan Otten fitting into Arizona basketball

Including his.

“I was like, ‘What the heck?’ ” Otten said.

Clearly, a genetic analysis was called for. And maybe a look into his family culture, or background, anything that might explain those kinds of hops. After all, as Idaho State coach Ryan Looney once noted, Otten simply has “some gifts from God.”

But Otten isn’t sure any analysis would clear anything up.

His father, Brian Otten, is a 6-2 service manager for a tractor company with a passion for restoring cars. His mother, Sylvia Coller, is six feet tall, certainly responsible for at least much of Otten’s 6-11 height, but not necessarily anything else: she never played sports and is a special education teacher.

“They didn't really play basketball. They didn't really play any sports,” Otten said. “Growing up, if I had interest in it, they would support me, but they didn't really know about it. You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Also, the interests Evan showed early in his youth didn’t point to him becoming a shot-swatting basketball talent, one who transferred from Idaho State to Arizona this season, and will make his McKale Center debut Tuesday in an exhibition game against San Francisco after missing the Red-Blue Showcase with an injury.

Brian and Sylvia had no clue. Nor did anyone else in Terrebonne, Oregon, an unincorporated community of about 1,400 people located a half-hour north of Bend, Oregon.

“It’s not even, like, a town,” Otten said. “There’s a gas station and that’s pretty much it. And an elementary school.”

After moving to Terrebonne at age nine from his native Iowa, Otten didn’t behave like a basketball prodigy either. He didn’t play basketball video games, or any video games, really, and initially never ventured on a court of any kind.

He just followed his imagination and his three siblings, growing in more ways than one.

“I was always outside, building forts, going exploring and stuff,” Otten said. “We had a lot of fun.”

Otten said he ventured into sports mostly for social reasons, to hang out with friends. So he competed in track as a junior high schooler, played football as a freshman at nearby Redmond High School and found it fun to play basketball later that year.

But that year was 2019-20. COVID restrictions shut down Otten’s plans to play tennis in the spring and also his visibility as an emerging basketball talent.

Everyone else was as clueless about what Otten could do as Otten initially was. He went through a COVID-limited sophomore basketball season in the spring of 2021, then grew to 6-8 as a junior when… still, few people saw him.

He was playing roughly three hours and a mountain pass away from the Portland metro area and its deep reserve of basketball talent, after all.

It was another world.

“Nobody recruits Central Oregon,” Otten said. “A lot of kids are into (agriculture), construction, all that stuff. You only get so many athletes.”

But while he started dominating the competition, Otten found he enjoyed it. Then he set a goal to get his college tuition paid via basketball, seeking exposure by playing on a club circuit after his junior season.

He accepted the one offer he received, to NAIA Oregon Tech, when coaches there eventually told him he had to sign or they would look elsewhere.

“It was cool to hear from a coach that wants you and really gives you their spiel,” Otten said. “I didn't have any other offerings at the time, so I was like, ‘Shoot, I better sign this.’ ”

Except Otten went back as a senior at Redmond, kept improving, and growing. He suffered an early-season hand injury that threatened to end his season, but his stepmother, Sara, is a physical therapist who helped him back on the court in four weeks.

Before long, people around Otten started telling him he could play at a higher level than Oregon Tech did, and Otten listened, so much so that he took an unofficial visit to Montana State. But that went sideways when Otten said coaches there concluded the visit by telling him they would get back to him about a possible offer.

“I was like ‘Hey, dude, I just decommitted from my school to come up on this visit that you told me to come up for, and now you don't know?’ ” Otten said.

One week was left in Otten’s senior year of high school.

“Now I’m freaking out,” Otten said.

Otten said he took a visit to Seattle Pacific and liked the staffers, but couldn't stomach the idea of living in the big city. So he turned to his high school coach for help, who in turn contacted Looney for advice.

After watching videos of Otten, Looney instead offered him a spot as a preferred walk-on, which led to the preseason vertical leap test — and then something else altogether.

Otten sat out the 2023-24 season but was good enough to earn a scholarship the next year — when he wound up blocking 66 shots and becoming the Big Sky’s Freshman of the Year.

He was out of nowhere, almost, in so many ways.

A leap of faith

As a redshirt sophomore last season, Otten blocked an absurd 13.4% of opponents’ two-point shots when he was on the floor… but he had trouble actually staying on the floor.

Otten committed 9.0 fouls per 40 minutes played, fouling out of five games while picking up four in eight other games. He started 32 of 33 games but averaged just 14.7 minutes in them.

Otten said part of the issue was that Idaho State was centered around a skilled and grinding big man in former D-II all-American Caleb Van De Griend, prompting him to feel he had to be super aggressive as a shot-blocker.

Things are different now. Otten projects this season as a role player with the ability to block or alter shots off the bench in spots, but without a pressing need to bring over-the-top aggressiveness.

Arizona assistant coach Evan Manning, who works with the Wildcats’ big men, said UA coaches told Otten during his recruitment that they would work to improve his ability to stay on the court.

“It’s just cleaning up some technique,” Manning said. “And helping him develop a little higher IQ in some of those situations where it's not just ‘You don't have to go and block every shot.’ Maybe go alter this one, because then a guard gets the rebound and we’re off and running.”

Everything Otten says indicates he’s fully on board. He raved about learning from center Motiejus Krivas and Ugnius Jarusevicius in practices, saying Krivas is all-around excellent and that Jarusevicius has excellent technique and footwork.

Between those guys and UA coaches, Otten says he’s learned more over the past three months than he has in the rest of his basketball life.

Also nice: Otten says his UA workouts are never subject to displacement by a “pickleball class,” as he said they sometimes were at Idaho State and that the Wildcats’ recruiting filter results in only “good dudes” on the Wildcats’ roster.

“Once you get here, it’s like ‘Dang, it’s awesome,’ to the point where you don’t want to leave,” Otten said. “It’s ‘Sign me up. Where do I sign? How can I help?’ That’s kind of my mindset.”

UA staffers appreciate it. Head coach Tommy Lloyd said Otten and fellow post newcomer Endi Aiyamenkhue, who is not expected to play Tuesday because of injury, have both “been great additions” with the ability to contribute.

In the meantime, they’re both adding to locker-room chemistry. Aiyamenkhue’s outgoing personality was obvious during a video post as the Wildcats traveled to Lithuania in August, and Manning said everybody loves being around Otten.

“He’s been awesome to work with,” Manning said. “He’s very coachable but he's not a robot. He wants to make you happy, but he also gonna show his personality. His hobbies are fixing cars, spending time with his fianceé. He’s a really mature dude. Very energetic, great sense of humor.”

Manning says Otten is also “super athletic,” but Otten has some humbling perspective there. His fiancée, former Idaho State jumper Isabelle Stockham, made sure of that once in the summer of 2024.

“I was giving her crap or something and she's like, ‘I'm probably faster than you.’ I said, ‘Really?’ Otten said. “So we went out to the track, and we raced 100 meters.

“I’m in prime summer conditioning shape, and it's her offseason. She hasn't done any sprints or anything in forever. I end up beating her by maybe six inches, and I was like, ‘Oh boy, we better not race again when she's in shape, because I'm never gonna win. Maybe she is more athletic than me.’

“That’s the last time we raced.”

After having foot surgery, Stockham medically retired from competition at Idaho State and came along with Otten to Tucson while finishing up her Idaho State degree online.

The two plan to get married in April back in Central Oregon, close to the hometown and the family garage where Otten is rooted but far from the life he is pursuing now.

“We have a shop at our house, and on the weekends and after work, my dad and my brother are always in there, always doing stuff — buying, selling, projects, flipping” cars, Otten said. “It's a good time. I enjoy it too. But I just don't, I mean, my life is different right now.

“One day, it'll be different, but for now, it’s college basketball.”