Christian Behrens was trying to get back on defense as former Kentwood standout Josh Smith, who is now at UCLA, was on a breakaway during a league game in January.

Behrens planted his left foot and heard his knee pop.

“It was completely torn and I had to have surgery in mid-February,” he said.

After missing the rest of his junior season recovering from a torn left anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), there was no way Behrens was going to lose any time on the court his senior year, so he worked hard in physical therapy for three months.

From there he was cleared to start training with Ryan Reese at Imperial Fitness in Kent.

“Then my doctor cleared me to start playing with a brace six months after my surgery, which was three months early,” he said. “I got better a lot faster (than expected). I recently took my brace off… a week or so ago. I feel pretty good. I’m almost 100 percent.”

As a junior, the 6-foot-8 Behrens averaged 21 points per game, along with 11 rebounds and 2.8 blocks.

“Christian is kind of a ‘do-it-all’ player,” said Tahoma coach Rob Morrow. “At 6-8 he can post and score at the rim but also has the ability to play on the perimeter and is an excellent passer.”

Morrow described Behrens as “a good kid, (who) gets good grades.”

His knee injury has helped Behrens appreciate basketball that much more and he has as much confidence in his team as he does in his repaired knee.

“We have a lot of returning players, a lot of seniors, a lot of expectations,” Behrens said. “We have a 6-10 sophomore (Paul Lorranger), we have a pretty good freshman that’s playing for us and can score. We’ve got the right personnel this year. We’ve been working really hard and I think we’ve matured so much from when we were together sophomore year.”

Behrens said the Bears want to go to state.

“We want to win it ultimately,” he said. “We think we can do that. It’s a realistic goal.”

On paper that may seem like a tall order given Tahoma went 5-15 overall last season and 2-14 in the South Puget Sound League, but, the Bears do return seven seniors including Behrens. Along with Lorranger, Tahoma also has three other strong underclassman coming up in Ethan McCormack, Coleman Wooten and Tyler Brenneman, as well as sophomore guard Dominic Smith returning. Smith shot 35 percent from the three point line as a freshman.

Behrens will be looking forward to games against league rivals Kentwood and Kentridge, which features star point guard Gary Bell who has signed to play at Gonzaga University, and has this Friday’s match up against third ranked Auburn circled on the calendar as well.

“That’s a good game, we need to go out there and win,” Behrens said of Auburn. “We play them at their house. That would be a good game to go out and win. That would set us up for the season.”

This will be a good year for Tahoma boys basketball, Behrens said.

“The competitiveness and toughness that we have just playing against each other, it’s nothing that I’ve experienced at Tahoma before, the energy feels more serious,” he said. “We know that we can do big things. The only thing we’ve got to do is realize that and work hard.”

A cornerstone the Bears will build on is a two and a half hour team meeting on Tuesday after the team didn’t play as well as they could’ve at a jamboree this past weekend.

“We felt our chemistry was off a little bit,” he said. “I felt like (the meeting) was way more effective than any practice that we could have had.”

Tahoma hosted Chief Leschi in a non-league contest Tuesday night as a tune up for league play that kicks off against Auburn.

While he was recovering from his knee injury, Behrens said, his father passed away this year.

Between those two life changing events he said he has realized how important basketball is to him and he’s now looking forward to picking from a list of top schools such as the University of Washington, Cal, Portland State, Gonzaga, Colorado, Colorado State among others.

“It was a humbling experience and I really got to know what kind of person I really am and how much fight I had in me and the determination I had to get back (on the court),” Behrens said of his recovery from his torn ACL.

“I realized just how much I love the sport. I just wanted to do whatever I could to get back as soon as possible.”