Starting at age five, Kevin Olson '09 would make it an after-school ritual to take the short trip across the street from his Rockport, Mass. home to the high school to watch the Rockport boys' basketball team practice. His father, Rick, coached there, and growing up, Olson served as the team's water boy or ball boy before donning a Rockport uniform as a member of the team in high school.

"[The Rockport players] were my idols when I was growing up," Olson said.

It was during these days that Olson developed his lights-out shooting stroke, his signature at Brandeis.

While he was too young and too short to shoot with the high school players at first, by the time he was "10 or 12," Olson was participating in shooting drills with the players-and beating them.

"[The players] wouldn't be happy if I would win," Olson joked.

Olson's shooting was on full display during the final season of his college career. He led all NCAA divisions in three-point percentage this season, hitting 58.9 percent including 65 percent in 14 University Athletic Association games. The 58.9 percent is the sixth-best mark in Division III history.

Brandeis coach Brian Meehan describes Olson's shooting technique as "perfect."

"His elbow is high, his hands are high, the rotation of the ball is the same every single time," Meehan said. "It's a perfect shot to watch. You watch all the great shooters and a lot of them look just like [Olson]."

Olson's youth basketball instruction came mostly from his father. Rick Olson coached the Rockport High School team for 27 years, teaching Olson's older brother, Jason, and Kevin along the way.

"He's always been tough on me," Olson said about his father. "But, I couldn't ask for anyone else. He was great."

Rick Olson retired after Kevin's senior year, but in a way he remained one of his son's coaches, even at the collegiate level.

"He always [talked] to me after games; he always [would] call me the next day. He's so into it," Olson said of his father. "The coach in him never died, for sure. He talked to me all the time about things I've done and what I can do better and what I see out there [on the court]."

Kevin Olson believes his basketball pedigree gave him an edge while playing at Brandeis.

"I think it definitely helped me over the years," he said. "I can see things and pick up things in a different light than a lot of players, I think."

In high school, Olson, despite drawing "double or triple teams" from opposing defenses, was named his athletic conference's player of the year in 2005, his senior season.

Meehan did not view Rockport as one of the premier high school basketball programs in Massachusetts, but that did not stop him from recruiting Olson. Meehan immediately recognized that he had found someone special-a player that was "mature" and "levelheaded," who "handle[d] adversity really well."

"Kevin was one of those guys who right when I saw him play-and who he was playing with-to see him stay positive and still play well and not let it affect him, that was a kid we knew we really wanted," Meehan said.

Olson shot a respectable 39 percent from three-point range in his first three years before upping that percentage to 58.9 percent this season.

Olson's historic three-point performance came after the NCAA moved the three-point line back from 19 feet 6 inches to 20 feet 6 inches prior to the start of the season. Olson said moving the three-point line back a foot helped to "spread the court out." However, Meehan believes Olson's performance from three-point range this season was the result of improved shot selection.

"I think the game slowed down a little bit for him, so it just seemed like he had a little more time," Meehan said. "He knew he had to step up [this season] and be the guy who was a main player for us, and I think he really embraced that."

Olson's triumphs came at a price. After dealing with knee pain throughout his first three years at Brandeis, he had off-season knee surgery to repair a torn patellar tendon last May.

"It just didn't respond as well as I hoped, so it was just as painful all this year," Olson said.

His off-season was limited to rehabilitating his knee. He also had to sit out the occasional practice throughout the season and suffered from "sharp pains" when he made sudden, quick movements on the court.

But none of that kept Olson off the court: Despite the pain, he led the team in minutes per game with 33.6, starting all 27 games this season.

"It was almost a necessity this year; I needed to play a lot of minutes and I wasn't going to say 'no', that's for sure," Olson said. "I'm very, very competitive, so if I'm out there, I wanted to play, and I wanted to win. The trainers haven't liked that at times."

Olson helped lead the Judges to their third consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament, where the team fell to Franklin and Marshall College 65-63 in the second round.

Olson's 12.6 points were second on the team this season, and his 86 three-pointers were the second-highest single-season total in the program's history. He will graduate with the highest career three-point percentage and free-throw percentage in Brandeis history. His 187 three-pointers are third all-time.

"I think his leadership ability stood out this year more than ever," Meehan said.

"Late this season, when it appeared to a lot of people that maybe our NCAA Tournament hopes were done, Kevin was the guy saying 'We're not out of this.'"

"I give him a lot of credit for keeping the guys believing that they were still playing for a bid," Meehan continued. "And as it turned out, he was right."

--Ian Cutler contributed reporting.