How Cheney’s Kylee Scheer became a Kansas high school basketball scoring machine
As the youngest of three siblings in a basketball-crazed family, Kylee Scheer had no choice but to learn how to perfect her shooting stroke to survive jam-ball sessions with her brother and his friends in the driveway of their family’s house in Cheney.
“We always beat up on each other, especially Kylee,” said Trent Scheer, Kylee’s older brother by three years. “She would always get beat up. I was definitely not the nice one.”
While it may have led to some scrapes and bruises growing up, that toughness instilled in Kylee Scheer on her driveway is what helped create one of the most lethal girls basketball players in the Kansas high school game.
Now a senior at Cheney and signee to Emporia State, Scheer averages 22.6 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 4.4 steals for a 23-0 Cardinals team that plays Frontenac (19-3) in Thursday’s 3 p.m. Class 3A semifinals at Hutchinson Sports Arena.
Coached by her father, Scheer is trying to lead Cheney to its second girls basketball state championship in school history and the first since 2010 when her father and her older sister, Payton, won it together.
“I think the biggest advantage she has was watching Payton and Trent and how they got after it and how it’s supposed to be done by working hard,” Cheney coach Rod Scheer said. “Kylee wanted to be just like them. She understood at an early age that success doesn’t happen overnight. Payton was in the gym. Trent was in the gym. She grew up with that.”
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For the last six years, Kylee has had a standing reservation during basketball season to shoot in the Cheney high school gymnasium. She has never missed a Sunday, an opportunity for her to get better is the way she sees it. Outside of team practice she likes to work on her three-point stroke, free throws, pull-up jumpers and ball handling.
Payton was a glue piece to Cheney’s state title run, while Trent was more of a scorer who was a second team all-class player his senior season. Kylee is a combination of both of her older siblings’ best qualities.
“She was in the stands for all of my games,” Payton said. “She rode on the bus with us. She saw that success that we had and she’s always wanted that since those days. With her work ethic, she developed this mentality of, ‘I’m going to win and I’m going to do whatever it takes.’”
“Growing up with them was the difference-maker,” said Deb Scheer, Kylee’s mother. “She was always in the gym shooting or out in the driveway playing against Trent and his buddies. She took a beating back then, but that’s why she’s not afraid to go against bigger girls in the paint today. Her mental toughness is so much further than Trent and Payton because she had to play against those guys growing up.”
It was never more clear that Kylee was built different than when she played her first game at the state basketball tournament in 2019 as a sophomore. She scored a career-high 38 points in an opening-round win over Columbus, a stat line that reverberated around the state and is still talked about in high school basketball circles.
It makes sense she is a coach’s daughter after watching her shoot a basketball. Her feet are always squared to the basket and her left-handed release is as pure as they come. She has made 2.2 three-pointers per game and scored 1,742 points in her four-year career.
“It’s literally insane,” Cheney senior point guard Lexi Cline said. “I’ll just go set a ball screen for her at the white line and let her shoot it because I know it’s going in. It’s insane. And it’s a lot of fun to watch.”
Opposing coaches have been befuddled by how to guard Scheer. She’s smart enough and unselfish enough to make the right pass, so double-teaming her isn’t a good option. Most teams have face-guarded her and tried to run her off the three-point line. While Scheer’s three-point shooting has taken a dip, she is shooting 61% on two-pointers.
“She’s the full package,” said Garden Plain coach Kody Kasselman, whose team is in the 2A semifinals, after giving up 47 combined points in two meetings against Scheer this season. “She just finds ways to score. She lets the game come to her. I don’t know if we’ve played anybody that has a quicker release. She’s definitely a pain in the butt. We are not going to miss playing her.”
The best parts of Scheer’s game were on full display in Monday’s 51-50 double-overtime win over Halstead in the Class 3A quarterfinals. Scheer scored a game-high 29 points and was a perfect 6-of-6 on free throws when Cheney trailed in the final minute of regulation and the first overtime.
When Cheney faced another four-point deficit in the second overtime, Scheer delivered on a nifty behind-the-back pivot dribble and pull-up jumper over three defenders.
“She just plays her butt off,” Rod Scheer said. “She consistently plays like that and it rubs off on the younger kids.”
And in the biggest moment of Cheney’s season, Kylee proved her mettle. She had the chance to chase a game-tying basket on her own in the final minute of double overtime, but instead of forcing a shot over a double-team, Scheer passed the ball to Campbell Hague, a sophomore who averages 4.1 points per game.
That trust in her teammate paid off, as Hague scored the basket and was fouled with 27 seconds left. The three-point play put Cheney ahead and proved to be the game-winning play.
“I 110% trust these girls,” Scheer said. “They come to practice and work their butts off every single day. I know when they’re in the game they’re going to do whatever it takes to win.”
After losing in the state championship game as a sophomore and having the coronavirus pandemic cut short Cheney’s run at a state title in the semifinals last season, Kylee is motivated to accomplish something she watched her sister do 11 years ago and her brother come close but never do.
“We’re a very competitive family, so I would always tell them that I was going to beat their records and I was going to win a state championship,” Kylee said. “But to see them have so much success, I am very proud to say they’re my siblings and for them to be so proud of me having the success I’ve had is really awesome.”
Watching Kylee score points and chase championships never gets old for Deb Scheer, but neither of those things were the reason why her eyes were welled up with tears on Monday night. This senior has seen Kylie take on a bigger leadership role than ever before and in the season’s biggest moment that leadership came through.
Kylee has scored a lot of points in her career — 1,742 to be exact — but it was a play where she didn’t score that made her mother the most proud.
“I can’t even put it into words how proud I am of her,” Deb Scheer said. “Her leadership. Her work ethic. Her hustle. Her determination. Her passion to lift up those younger girls and mentor them and help them play at a high level. That’s what I’m most proud of. She can score a basket on anybody. But I’m most proud of that leadership.”
Thursday’s state tournament schedule
Note: All game times are p.m.
Class 6A boys (at Wichita State’s Koch Arena)
Lawrence (20-1) vs. Blue Valley North (19-3), 3
Campus (20-2) vs. Lawrence Free State (20-3), 7
Class 5A girls (at Emporia’s White Auditorium)
Andover Central (23-0) vs. Salina Central (19-4), 3
St. Thomas Aquinas (18-2) vs. Lansing (19-3), 7
Class 4A boys (at Salina’s Tony’s Pizza Events Center)
Bishop Miege (20-1) vs. McPherson (13-10), 3
Augusta (17-5) vs. Louisburg (17-6), 7
Class 3A girls (at Hutchinson Sports Arena)
Cheney (23-0) vs. Frontenac (19-3), 3
Hugoton (23-1) vs. Sabetha (22-2), 7
Class 2A boys (at Kansas State’s Bramlage Coliseum)
Hoxie (24-0) vs. Wabaunsee (18-4), 3
Hillsboro (21-3) vs. Lyndon (19-4), 7
Class 1A-Div. I girls (at Dodge City’s United Wireless Arena)
Olpe (23-0) vs. Hodgeman County (21-4), 3
Doniphan West (20-3) vs. Norwich (19-3), 7
Class 1A-Div. II girls (at Barton Community College)
Golden Plains (24-0) vs. Central Plains (21-3), 3
St. John’s-Tipton (19-1) vs. Cunningham (22-2), 7
This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
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