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ATLANTA — Of all the characters of March, Tre Holloman might be the most worth listening to. Every word is worth the work. He stopped caring long ago how it sounds and cares instead about only what it means.

The Michigan State junior sat on stage at State Farm Arena on Saturday, the eve of a Sunday Elite Eight matchup with top-seeded Auburn. He went mostly unnoticed, blending in between teammates Jeremy Fears and Jase Richardson during a preview news conference. As a reserve point guard, Holloman didn’t exactly garner an influx of questions. Then the moderator asked him to chime in on a question posed to Spartans players.

“You know,” he began, drawing a perceptible intake of breath, “it’s like, like, kind of is a privilege to be the last Big Ten team representing that conference.”

Later, leaning against a wall, Holloman let out a massive laugh. “I feel like I did good with that,” he said. “You know, earlier this week, man, I did a one-on-one interview. It was bad. I did terrible. But what can you do?”

This is how Holloman speaks. Some letters dragged. Some words repeated. It can be difficult to reconcile this is the same player slow-motion mouthing some choice words 2 inches from Brock Harding’s face; the same player who shoved two Michigan players off the center court Michigan State logo in a rivalry dustup; the same player who, on Friday night, heard Ole Miss guard Sean Pedulla spit some talk in the Sweet 16 and made sure to get the final word.

“I know I need to chill,” Holloman said earlier this week, fighting a smile. “I’m trying.”

This is the version on the outside, the one easily cut into social media clips. Tre Holloman the smack-talker. But then you get close to the 21-year-old, you talk to him, and that’s when you meet the other version. Tre Holloman, the person, has a stutter.

This isn’t something he discusses often, but it’s who he is as much as being a basketball player. Holloman was a talkative kid growing up. Never shy, always around other kids. As kindergarten began, though, his parents began noticing that he struggled to get words out. He’d either get stuck on a letter or repeat the same word over and over. Young Tre would often sing instead of speak because the sounds came easier to him.

A speech-language pathologist soon told the family Holloman had a disfluency known as elongated speech. Holloman immediately began therapy and learned tools to communicate, but the stutter only softened. By middle school, his future reality became clear. While roughly three-quarters of children who stutter mostly move past the issue into adulthood, many don’t. As sixth, seventh and eighth grade rolled along with endless speech and language sessions, Holloman’s improvements leveled out and he decided to forego further treatment.

“I got better,” Holloman remembers, “but, man, I was still stuttering like crazy.”

This part, of course, comes as no surprise. Kids, classmates, dudes at the park — they were brutal. Relentless teasing. Tre’s older brother, Marquis, and a crew of cousins stuck up for him, dolling out defense, but there’s only so much that can be done when it comes to such an easy mark. Holloman was smaller than other kids but knew he’d grow taller. Shaking the stutter? Not as easy. To this day, Holloman recalls the first time he heard an adult stutter.

“I was like, damn, man, this ain’t never gonna go away,” Holloman said Saturday.

But then there were sports. Basketball, football and baseball. Holloman was about as good as any kid in the Twin Cities. Holloman got bigger and grew better, needing to move up to play older classes. Sure, he was still picked on, but it’s hard to bully the kid who plays quarterback and point guard. Holloman started on the varsity basketball team as an eighth-grader at Minneapolis North before transferring to Cretin-Derham as a freshman.

He was so good at football that he eventually grew into a three-star recruit as a safety.

Holloman not only found sports as an outlet, but he also learned the ultimate lesson of the bullied — the best way to neutralize a joke is to laugh at it.

“By junior year of high school,” he said Saturday. “I was just like, man, f— it. This is me. I stutter.”

Operating on his own terms, Holloman found his way to Michigan State, to being a key piece in Tom Izzo’s program, and here, to the Elite Eight.

But it’s worth remembering what’s under everything. All that smack? Holloman’s insistence on getting in the mix anytime something stirs? His knack for getting on the floor in an aimless game and suddenly raising the temperature seemingly for his own enjoyment.

That all comes from somewhere.

“You know, it’s just, like — all that bullying, that feeling of being attacked, I think that’s all in me, and I just, like, snap, kinda turn into someone else,” he said. “It comes out as aggressiveness.”

Holloman pushed back a corner of his mouth into a half-grin and looked around, like he just realized something, as if irony itself walked down the hall and smacked him square in the face. Of all things, he has a reputation for … talking too much.

“Now that is funny,” he said.

It all makes sense, though. The Tre Holloman we see on the floor, the one unhindered by apprehension, the one looking to make a point or tell someone what’s what?

He doesn’t stutter.

“Oh, it comes out nice and smooth,” he said of his smack. “No problem on that, you know? I just say it, probably ’cause I don’t think about it.”

Those who understand Holloman know what they see and what they hear. Not just teammates and family. But those who watch. In February, after sinking a shot-of-the-year buzzer-beater at Maryland, Holloman went through the expected gauntlet of interviews that followed, many coming on live TV. He answered each question with loads of joy and gave credit to his teammates. He also got stuck on a few words.

Soon after, Holloman received a private Instagram message from a mother saying that her son, who’s trying to navigate a stutter of his own, connected with one of the interviews and now counted Holloman as his favorite player. She felt her son finally found some inspiration.

At an ensuing road game, another set of parents brought their son to meet Holloman. The boy stuttered, too. They all took pictures together. Holloman hung with him as long as he could.

So maybe there’s more going on when Tre Holloman speaks.

And maybe he’ll have something to say against Auburn.

Either way, he has some answers for everyone.

“Be confident with what you’re talking about,” he said in that hallway. “You want to know what you want to say before you start talking, you feel me? Take your time. No rush. And, like, if you stutter, just keep on going with it.”

(Photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)