He’ll find a college home, but Traijan Sain isn’t worried about that right now

CEDAR RAPIDS - You see him, watch him, and there’s a lot to like.

Traijan Sain is 6-foot-5 and a lengthy 6-5 with long arms that cause havoc at the top of Cedar Rapids Washington’s zone defense. A video of his career dunks has to be viewed.

There was one last season in which he received an out-of-bounds pass from in front of his bench, smoothly caught the alley oop and smashed it home.

He has improved his strength, is able to score inside. He seems to be a good kid.

But for some reason a college scholarship has been elusive for the Warriors senior.

“Best player I’ve coached,” Washington Coach Justin Decker said. “I think he’s a Division I player, for sure. We’ve talked about this, but I think that (transfer) portal really hurt him. I think three of four years ago, he’s already locked in, has something, for sure. So he may have to work a little harder. Go to prep school, whatever.”

Sain averages a team-best 15.9 points per game for Washington, which takes a 12-9 record into its Class 4A substate opener Monday night at home against Cedar Rapids Jefferson. After a slow start to the season, the Warriors won nine of 11 to end the regular season, including come-from-behind wins over eighth-ranked Dubuque Senior and a full-strength Iowa City West team that could cause chaos in its substate.

The losses were competitive ones to top-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy and No. 9 Cedar Falls.

The core of this team has played together on varsity for three and four years, but Sain is their leader. All you have to do is ask him how he has played this season to understand that.

“To me, points don’t really matter,” Sain said. “Noah Johnson came in (from Linn-Mar), he’s averaging almost double figures, taking some of my points, but we’re winning now. It’s not like it’s a struggle for me to score, like I’m not scoring, and we’re not winning. It’s like I’m not scoring (as much), and we are winning. I’m totally OK with that.”

Sain said after after the summer came up fruitless for him as far as Division I offers, he decided to take a pause from the craziness of recruiting to concentrate on helping his team be the best it could this season. He stopped worrying about college basketball.

“Once AAU was over, I kind of put recruiting to the side a little bit,” he said. “It’s senior year, the last year I can really make a difference in the program here. So I cared less about myself and more about what we can do as a team.”

Certainly he’ll have options moving ahead. Junior colleges (including Kirkwood) have contacted him, prep school could be an option, as could good Division II or NAIA programs.

Everything is on the table, he said. And it’ll wait, because this is the postseason, and Washington is playing its best basketball right now.

“We’re showing exactly how good we can be,” Decker said.

Every Class 3A team begins its substate play Monday, including fourth-ranked Cedar Rapids Xavier (hosting Clear Creek-Amana) and fifth-ranked Marion (hosting Vinton-Shellsburg). Those 4A teams in action Monday also include West (against Cedar Rapids Prairie), Linn-Mar (against Iowa City Liberty) and Iowa City High (against Waterloo East).

Top-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy is among 16 teams with first-round substate byes.

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