Tyler Laser doesn’t see what all the fuss is about.

He just wants to play basketball and help his team win games.

Labeled by a high school boy’s basketball blog on mlive.com in his home state of Michigan as “the most controversial player in state”, Laser signed last week to be Eastern head coach Mike Miller’s second new recruit for the 2007-08 season.

But all the talk about Laser being cocky and unsportsmanlike in high school is backed up by one thing: he won games and scored points.

“Well, mlive, for some reason, just loves to kill me,” Laser said. “But I guess, if they’re not talking about you, you’re apparently not doing anything.”

And Laser did plenty in his high school career.

Laser, a 6-foot-1 guard from Hillsdale, Mich., averaged 29.6 points last season, and finished with a school record 652 points his senior year.

A four-year player on head coach Brad Felix’s teams at Hillsdale High School, Laser finished with 1,875 points in his career.

He led his high school to a 19-3 record last year and his teams went 81-14 in his high school career, advancing to the Michigan state quarterfinals his sophomore year.

Laser attracted the attention of Eastern’s coaching staff about halfway through the Panthers’ season.

Miller said Laser’s scoring numbers initially peaked their interest. Then, after seeing a tape of Laser play, the Eastern coaching staff went up and saw him play.

Laser said the coaching staff came up to five of his games.

The effort Eastern put into Laser left a lasting impression on him. Schools like Siena, Buffalo, Ohio and Cleveland State, among others, were looking into him.

“I figured someone’s that going to be putting time like that into me, was worth looking into,” Laser said. “The more we talked, the more and more I liked the coaches.”

The effort Eastern’s coaching staff put in left a mark on Felix also, who said Eastern is getting a “diamond in the rough.”

“We just felt that they weren’t just flapping their thumbs,” he said. “They were talking the talk and walking the walk at the same time.”

Laser, undecided on a major, said he wants to contribute right away.

Miller understands where Laser is coming from on the issue of seeing immediate playing time.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a guy to walk onto any campus that didn’t expect a starting job,” Miller said. “I really don’t. And there’s nothing wrong with that. He has aspirations to do a lot of things in basketball. He loves to play.”

Laser’s competitiveness and love of basketball has rubbed some people the wrong way in Michigan.

Laser was ejected from a game this year in February for disagreeing with the referees, which forced him to sit out the next game.

Laser’s Hillsdale team lost the game he had to sit out, costing his team an outright conference title.

The loss was also the first home loss for Hillsdale since Laser’s freshman year.

But Felix said the media in the Hillsdale area put more emphasis on Laser’s attitude than what actually takes place.

“He has a little bit of an edge to him,” Felix said. “He doesn’t want to lose. He might talk a little to the officials. He was trying to shake that more this year. I can see where his (bad reputation) comes from a little bit, but he’s never once spoken back to me. He’s very coachable. And the edge he has, is the edge a coach wants.”