Scott Bamforth's 3-point shot is so smooth and sure, you'd think he had nothing more on his mind than seeing the basketball spin through the air and swish through the net, the way it did on his first 10 shots from beyond the arc this season.
Less than a week removed from nearly losing his wife and newborn son in childbirth, the 6-foot-2 junior shooting guard made the first five of those 3s in Weber State's season opener Nov. 11 against Northern New Mexico.
Scott had been at Kendra Bamforth's side in the early morning hours Sunday, Nov. 6, when the doctors told them she had a condition called preeclampsia and if she didn't have the baby immediately, four weeks early, both could die.
"It was a hard time, one of the worst times of my life," Scott said. "I'm kind of a religious person, so if you really put your family first, then the Lord is going to take care of the rest; basketball, life, everything else. My main focus was just to make sure they're all right."
After tiny little Kingzton John Bamforth came into the world at 5 pounds, 5 ounces, 19 inches long, Scott was watching as his son stopped breathing.
The medical staff quickly sent Scott out to the hall, where he spent the next 15 or 20 minutes -- just under the amount of time on the clock for one half of a basketball game -- crying and praying over the phone with his best friend, not knowing if his son would be alive when he was allowed back into the room.
"That was the worst 15 minutes of my life, I'll tell you that," Scott said.
When the nurse came out, little Kingzton was breathing and on a ventilator.
"I really believe that the Lord made me see (my son) from his lowest point because I know he's going to be successful in his life," Scott said, "and it's going to be good to see that, to see where he came from, to see he came from the bottom to all the way where he's going to go."
To be so close to losing Kendra and Kingzton was a difficult moment, but the 22-year-old has faced other challenging times in his life.
As a teenager, Scott's father, John Bamforth, passed away from a heart attack, then two years later, his mother, Elizabeth, passed away from kidney failure. Many people, friends and family, stepped in to take care of him then.
"I just pray a lot and have faith that everything is going to be all right," Scott said. "I really had a lot of people help me. I'm not where I am today by myself."
One of those people was Gerome Espinoza, Scott's coach at Albuquerque (N.M.) Del Norte High School, where Scott became the school's all-time leading scorer and was the 2006-07 New Mexico player of the year. He was also Del Norte's all-time leader in 3-point and free throw shooting percentages, but was not heavily recruited out of high school.
Espinoza steered him to Western Nebraska Community College, where coach Brian Joyce became another mentor. A solid freshman season led Scott to a chance to play at Weber State, but not before he missed a season at Western Nebraska after surgery for a dislocated elbow suffered in the preseason.
It didn't get any easier when he got on the court with the Wildcats.
Scott Bamforth was one of the top 3-point threats in the nation as a sophomore at Weber State, despite playing through the pain of a torn labrum that hampered the range of motion in his shoulder and required a postseason surgery.
The injury didn't stop him from launching an electrifying 40-footer at the buzzer to beat league-leading Northern Colorado last January that was featured on national sports shows and websites. For the year, Scott averaged 12.2 points per game and was named an All-Big Sky Conference first-team player.
Last week, little Kingzton struggled to breathe without a ventilator in his first days.
"At first, I would touch him and he wouldn't move, he would just be laying there," Scott said. "Monday morning, I touched his hand and he moved and grabbed my hand. It was a good feeling, like, oh, he's getting there. At that moment, I felt at ease, like everything's going to be all right."
Despite not having slept all that weekend, Scott decided to play in Weber State's exhibition game Nov. 7 against Colorado-Colorado Springs, where he scored 13 points the day after his son's birth.
With Kendra and Kingzton still at the hospital on Nov. 11, Scott tossed in 17 points in the season opener against NAIA school Northern New Mexico, going 5-for-5 from 3-point range.
The competition was much tougher Tuesday against in-state rival Utah State, but shot after shot arced through the net as Scott hit his first five 3-point attempts in that game to start the season 10-for-10. He finished with a career-high 28 points.
"I just feel like I'm blessed and the Lord just took care of me because he knew where my heart was and it was with my wife and son," Scott said. "The other night, it was pretty much all the Lord. It wasn't me, he just put me in position to do it and I did."
Scott Bamforth was fourth in the nation in 3-point shooting (48.8 percent) last year and is an unbelievable 12-for-14 from 3-point range (85.7 percent) after two games this season.
That's not as good, however, as how he felt Thursday afternoon when he brought Kendra and little Kingzton home from the hospital: 100 percent.
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