TULLAHOMA, Tenn. -- On the fringes of college basketball, the charter bus turned left off a winding country road and chugged up the driveway leading to Hiwassee College. Sitting in the back of the bus, Tyree Evans looked out the window and saw a cemetery next to the school's welcome sign. "Man, this [expletive] is like something off a scary movie," he said.

By his estimation, Evans should be in the NBA right now. But on this February night in Madisonville, Tenn. (population 4,000), he played against a Hiwassee team whose coach also coaches the women's team. About 100 people dotted the six rows of worn-out wooden bleachers on either side of the gym. Paper cutouts of basketballs hung on the wall, recognizing team sponsors, including Martin's Wrecker Service and Sheriff Doug Watson.

This was where Evans went to find his future and to escape his past, which almost destroyed his basketball career. This was reality, Evans' last chance on a long journey to a major Division I program that he hopes will launch him to the pros. He spent the past season at Motlow State Community College, his third school since he left George Wythe High, where he was a star from 2001 to 2004. His odyssey took a promising turn earlier this month when he signed with Maryland.

At Wythe, he scored 884 points in his senior season, more than anyone in state history except Allen Iverson and Moses Malone. Cincinnati offered him a scholarship -- a way out of the unforgiving neighborhoods on Richmond's South Side that he bounced around as a kid.

He never made it to Cincinnati. Instead he spent time at a prep school, a community college and, for two weeks, Richmond City Jail. He was questioned in a murder investigation, pled guilty to assault and battery after being charged with statutory rape in 2005 and was convicted of possessing marijuana last year.

Evans came last fall to Motlow intent on distancing himself from his mistakes. He changed his jersey number from five to zero, because so many people said he ruined himself and would amount to nothing.

"There can't be no more slippin' on a banana peel because I didn't see it," he said.

He knows talent gave him this many chances, and he stayed out of trouble this season while excelling on the court. A 6-3 guard, he led his league in scoring and was its co-player of the year.

But even as he moves closer to the bigger stage he craves, he remains conflicted, 23 years old and still tinged with the harshness of his childhood. Is he the Tyree who mentors a South Side 14-year-old whose mother is dead? Or the Tyree who, his prep school coach said, ruined team chemistry with his selfish attitude?

Is he the Tyree who saw a stray cat outside his house a few months ago and began feeding it? Or the Tyree who body slammed a teammate in the locker room earlier this season?

The future he's always wanted depends on him finding out. Troubled childhood

A different winter night. A bigger crowd. Evans, a Wythe senior, had 31 points at halftime against L.C. Bird. He looked into the stands.

"Somebody better call the fire department," he said. He finished with 51.

"Out there, that court was like his own little kingdom, his own little world, a place where he could go and everything was OK," former Wythe coach Franklin McMillian said. "He knew as soon as that clock hit triple zeroes that reality would set in and he would have to come back to a place where he didn't want to be, and that was the real world."

Evans was 5 when he first suspected his family's involvement in dealing drugs. He spent his early childhood in Midlothian Village, an apartment complex near Wythe that historically is one of Richmond's highest crime areas. While playing football between apartment buildings one day, he and his friends saw police officers rush by, preparing to knock down a door. The boys followed, wondering where the cops would stop. They ran to Evans' apartment, looking for his uncle and godfather, both of whom had served jail time on drug charges.

Evans' front door changed often back then. Debbie Evans, a single mother, struggled to make rent, and evictions forced the family from apartment to apartment. Tyree suspects his mother used drugs and said that contributed to the instability. He never saw her use. She admits hanging out with drug users but denies using drugs.

When Evans was 13, he moved in with his godfather, David Johnson. Police nabbed Johnson for selling crack when Evans was 16. After arresting him, they went to search his house, where Evans was sleeping. Police barged in, and he jolted up, blinked a few times and saw guns pointed at his face: "Freeze!"

By this time, his brother Ronte had begun selling heroin. Ronte, four years older, was always Tyree's idol. Ronte's heroin earnings increased his influence over his younger brother, and during Tyree's senior year at Wythe, he drove a 1996 maroon Cadillac DeVille with 21-inch rims and three televisions. He said he never sold drugs. "I didn't have to," he said.

He still craved a constant home, and before his junior year, he moved in with Tabitha Roane, his friend's mother, whom he adopted as his godmother. He has lived with her ever since, and she is listed in his cell phone as "My 2nd Mom."

Even this stability couldn't keep trouble away. On an October night during Evans' senior year, his childhood friend Derrick Smalls, 17, was shot to death on the South Side. The police thought Evans knew something about it. They brought him to the station and questioned him. He said he was at Roane's house and knew nothing of the murder. He volunteered for a lie detector test. He said he passed.

The police investigation later cleared Evans and determined someone else killed Little, but word of the situation spread to college coaches, and now Evans had another burden to carry: a bad reputation. Still no escape

Nestled in the pine trees of northern Massachusetts, The Winchendon School offered an escape from the South Side. Evans went there in 2004 to achieve NCAA academic standards that he didn't meet in high school. Throughout the school year, he expanded his experiences. He tried snowboarding and golf for the first time. He academically qualified to play in college.

His behavior on the court confirmed Winchendon coach Mike Byrnes' fears about accepting him. He missed one-third of the season to have his tonsils removed, and when he returned, Byrnes decreased his role. Evans sulked and quit. He returned a week later, but his sour attitude ruined team chemistry, Byrnes said.

Still, if these were Evans' only problems at Winchendon, he most likely would have headed to Cincinatti to begin his college career. But his future had already begun to unravel on Oct. 11, 2004.

That night, an intoxicated 15-year-old female student at Winchendon was in a room at a boys' dormitory. What happened there remains unclear. The prosecution said Evans touched the girl without her consent. He denied he was in the room.

Evans, a teammate and two former Winchendon players were charged in June 2005 with statutory rape. He was able to remain on the basketball team because Winchendon administrators told Byrnes to not suspend the players until the legal process ended.

Four days before Cincinnati began practice in October, Evans pled not guilty. Cincinnati officials refused to admit him while the charges were pending. He sat out the school year and traveled to Massachusetts for court appearances. He accepted a plea deal in July 2006 for assault and battery and two years probation. He said he did it simply to move on.

Despite his desires, he had struggled to shed reminders of his past while his case moved slowly through the Massachusetts judicial system. Tyree felt optimistic that once the situation in Massachusetts concluded, he would quickly wind up at a D-I program. Then in August, he and a friend were pulled over in a car at Virginia Commonwealth University.

A VCU police officer found two ounces of marijuana at Evans' feet and a digital scale in the trunk. Roane, his godmother, called him earlier that day to make sure he was avoiding trouble, and when he phoned her after being arrested, he told her, "You jinxed me."

He spent two weeks last summer in city jail for a misdemeanor possession charge. Nobody bothered Evans because many of the inmates were South Side guys who knew him. He spent hours doing sit-ups, his feet tucked between cell bars.

The day he got out, he said, he played in a summer league game at John Marshall High. He scored 33 points. Finding a new home

Evans' personal progress was tested early at Motlow. During a game, 6-10 teammate Cliff Dixon didn't step out to defend a shooter. Evans cursed at him. Dixon cursed back. In the locker room at halftime, Dixon confronted Evans.

Evans felt threatened. Would he restrain himself or resort to his old South Side attitude and show no weakness? He never asked himself the question. Instinct took over. He grabbed Dixon and slammed him to the floor. "Timber," Evans said later. "You know how you chop a tree down and it falls?"

Evans acted calmer after the game, walking away when Dixon swung at him in the locker room. Motlow coach Bobby Steinburg later met with both players.

"I'm in a business of second chances," Steinburg said. Junior colleges like Motlow are catch-alls for players with checkered pasts, so Steinburg must tolerate the inevitable drama.

Steinburg felt comfortable taking Evans even after his latest slip: At Evans' previous school, Butler Community College in Kansas, he was kicked off the team midway through the 2006-07 season for poor on-court conduct. Steinburg, a Midlothian High graduate, trusted Evans' former coaches in Richmond when they vouched for Evans.

As a precaution, Steinburg arranged for Evans to live with Aaron Boyd, a 29-year-old Motlow assistant coach, and teammate Anthony Sally, a Chesterfield Community High grad. Keep an eye on Evans, Steinburg told Boyd.

Then Boyd woke up one Sunday morning and found Evans cleaning the house. He watched Evans leave food for the stray cat wandering on the porch. Evans named it Tom, and now Tom has a kitten.

Back home for Christmas, Evans just lounged at Roane's house, five miles from Midlothian Village. Though he feels loyal to his old neighborhood -- he has "South" and "Side" tattooed on the back of his hands -- he hung out there less. His new attitude: "Instead of being careless, care more about myself and my life and my future," he said.

He never considered consequences before. He felt too invincible, operating on selfish impulses, still the 5-year-old boy who jumped in the pool's deep end with all his clothes on. In high school, he and his teammates fought kids who taunted them at parties. A few of those nights ended with Evans and friends fleeing gunfire.

Roane said a new Evans emerged last July when he saw how his carelessness hurt his loved ones. She told him to not put Cino, the family pit bull who was fiercely loyal to Evans, outside until he bought a new collar and chain. Cino's current collar choked him. Evans misunderstood her, and when her son, Guy, went outside later, Cino was dead. Evans had left, and Roane phoned him to break the news.

"That hurt me so bad," Evans said. "I really raised that dog."

He came home teary-eyed, and saw Roane and Guy sobbing. "I'm sorry," Evans told Roane.

She still remembers almost every detail of that afternoon, the day Evans, so selfish for so long, shouldered responsibility for his actions. It started pouring rain just after Evans returned home. He walked outside, picked up Cino's body and carried him to the garage. A role model?

Evans has known Anthony Scott all his life, and now that Scott is 14, he reminds Evans of his younger self. Scott lives in Midlothian Village with his cousin. His mom died of breast cancer when he was 7. Last fall, he quit his football team after a disagreement with the coach.

Evans recently became something of a surrogate father for Scott, sometimes sleeping at Scott's apartment when he's in Richmond.

"I just want him to have the perfect life," he said. "I don't want him to live my life all over."

Two summers ago, Evans coached a basketball team of Scott and his friends in a month-long tournament at Fonticello Park. "I'm gonna make it," Scott said. "I'm gonna be just like him."

Evans told Scott that, if not for legal obstacles, he'd have Scott live with him in Tennessee, where Evans found stability.

He sometimes expresses regrets -- "I'm supposed to be in the pros right now," he said -- but more often shows charm that belies the pain of his past. On the bus ride to Hiwassee, players complained about the coaches' suggestion for a postgame meal: pizza again? "They think we the Ninja Turtles or something," Evans piped up to laughter.

Evans spent most of the trip text messaging Tukeea "Byrd" Hicks, who drove 100 miles from her community college to see him play at Hiwassee. Evans is so smooth with women that teammates, unable to keep track of his most recent flame, just call each one Ree's Girl. Looking to the future

Evans stared at the scouting report scrawled on the freestanding chalkboard, which was tilted to the left, about to fall off its wooden supports in Hiwassee's basement locker room. The smell of Icy Hot mixed with the stench of the men's bathroom next door. This was an easy place to be forgotten, and that is Evans' greatest fear -- being a waste of talent.

Despite the modest setting, he wanted everyone to know he was the best player on the court. On his first shot, he canned a 25-foot 3-pointer, falling away. Another 3 on a fast break. "Ahhhh!" he shouted, pumping his fist. He had 22 points and four 3s in a victory.

In the bleachers, the only person cheering was Byrd. After the game, she and Evans walked outside. When he returned, he smiled, thoroughly happy with this evening, his lips sparkling with Byrd's lip gloss.

He and his teammates walked out into the night, across the parking lot, and boarded the bus. They got their $10 meal per diem for dinner at a gas station. The driver turned off the overhead lights, and the bus chugged away. Evans leaned back in his seat, riding off into an uncertain future he can't wait to see.

Contact Darryl Slater at (804) 649-6026 or dslater@timesdispatch.com.

Staff writer David Ress contributed research to this story.