D’Aundre Samuels’ season could’ve gone the opposite direction.

Denver East was never supposed to win the Class 6A title. Samuels wasn’t projected to be the star of the tournament. And on top of long on-court odds, there was tough real-life stuff: A shooting in Colorado Springs at midseason that took the life of Samuels’ friend. Another shooting the next week outside East which resulted in the death of a peer.

Samuels just kept hooping, despite all the chaos in his life, and despite a sprained ankle he sustained early in the season and re-aggravated in the title game. The 6-foot-3 Angels senior averaged 21.8 points, 7.6 rebounds, 6.6 assists and 4.9 steals as the catalyst to the school’s record-tying 12th state championship, cemented by 25 points in the Class 6A title win over Fossil Ridge.

For that, Samuels is the clear choice for 2023 Mr. Colorado Basketball.

“Midway through the season was definitely the toughest,” Samuels said. “And the start was tough, too. But when we were 0-2, and after (the shootings) happened, I just put trust in my teammates, and we built chemistry that no other team had. Basketball helped me a lot through everything because it kept my mind off the things that were happening outside of it. Off the court, of course I worried about it all, and I’m doing better now. But basketball was my therapy.”

In his therapy sessions, Samuels thrived.

After coach Rudy Carey moved Samuels and fellow senior Austin Mohr from guard to forward following East’s opening two losses to Windsor and Fossil Ridge, the Angels ripped off 26 wins in a row en route to the crown.

“D’Aundre was like our LeBron James, and we put four shooters around him,” Carey said. “Those shooters… really came along throughout the season and D’Aundre helped facilitate that. He got more pleasure out of distributing the ball to those around him than he did scoring. He can score, but he also knows how to distribute the ball to players in rhythm, and that’s what made him a great player.”

With Samuels dishing the rock, Mohr averaged 15.6 points per game and senior shooting guard Jacob Greenwood averaged 11.6. That auxiliary scoring was enough to complement the production of Samuels, who averaged 23.4 points over five playoff games.

On a squad Carey claims had the least amount of talent of his 10 championship teams, Mohr said Samuels’ leadership helped the Angels reach their potential.

“Throughout the season, he’s been a guy who lifts people up,” Mohr said. “Obviously skills-wise, he’s a lot better than all the rest of the players on the team, so he took it upon himself to consistently give pointers to guys throughout the season and help (our supporting cast) get to where they needed to be for us to have success as a team.”

Samuels has a slate of junior college offers, including a few schools in California, plus Otero, Seward and Cowley around the region. Division II University of Nebraska-Kearney offered him as well.

He hopes more offers from bigger schools come in soon, especially as the transfer portal situates itself, but is grateful to be in the position to go play basketball in college, somewhere, after his roller-coaster season.

Samuels’ friend, Caleb Nickerson, was shot and killed in the early morning of Sunday, Feb. 5, in a spree in Falcon that also claimed the life of another 17-year-old and sent multiple people to the hospital. Then, eight days later, 16-year-old Denver East student Luis Garcia was shot outside the school and later died from his injuries.

Samuels dealt with all that amid the Angels’ late-season surge, channeling the best part of himself on the court.

“He sacrificed, and he really believed,” Denver East assistant coach Josh Hamilton said. “Once he realized where he could go — that it could do something for himself but also for his family, in terms of going to college paid for — he was on the way to becoming his own man. And when D’Aundre locked in and started really seeing the game (down the stretch), he started seeing it different, and it was clear.”

Hamilton said a D-I program would be wise to take a chance on Samuels, who might wind up at that level eventually by way of a junior college, because “coaches know what they’re getting.”

“He rises to the occasion of the competition level,” Hamilton said. “If he has to get 26 points, or if he has to get 20 rebounds, or if he has to tutor his homeboy, he’s going to do whatever it takes. He’s not going to let his team down. You’re going to get 100% from that young man. That’s a skill that can’t be taught or trained. That’s just who he is.”