By Joe O’Leary, The Mountain Times
There is a plague across high school basketball. All over the nation, high school basketball coaches take players around 6 foot 4 inches to 6 foot 8 inches and make them play a cookie cutter big man role for their team. It makes sense in theory, that height range is pretty tall for high school, and most players around that size can find relative ease as a traditional center at that level.
This all sounds well and good, so what’s this aforementioned “plague”? When these players reach college, if they ever do, that height is suddenly shockingly unremarkable. There isn’t a single college coach in the nation that wants a 6 and a half foot tall center that can’t effectively create his own shot or defend outside of the paint.
Enter Jacob Brown, a 6 foot 8 inch senior forward for the Sandy High School basketball team. Brown, who has always been tall, has seen noticeable development in some of the more technical aspects of the game in his time under Head Coach Paul Henderson.
“When I was younger, obviously I didn’t really have to put a whole lot of time into [basketball]. I was so much taller than everyone. In high school people are taller, so I kind of had to actually start working on basketball,” Brown laughingly explained. Coming into high school, Brown possessed a solid post package, great paint defense, and a solid shot for his size. Three years later, Brown is a do it all forward that possesses a myriad of traditional “guard skills” that present upside at the next level.
“Coach [Henderson] has reached out to a few colleges for me. I think he really understands that over time the game has changed, and a guy like me isn’t really strictly a post player anymore,” Brown said. On a varsity roster that saw a fair amount of turnover this year, Brown is one of only three seniors on the team. Outside of Brown, the team has a cast of athletic shooters and pesky defenders, making the spacing and pace of the team incredibly tough to guard. The worst nightmare of any coach is going against a team where everyone, even the tallest player on the court, can shoot.
“We lost a lot of height. We went from one of the tallest teams in the state to one of the shortest. I think we got a lot of guys who run the court, a lot of good athletes. We’re definitely faster than we were last year. We lost the height, but I think we’re just as good at defense and just as athletic,” Brown said. As the season progresses and the Pioneers continue to get a feel for playing with one another, it will be interesting to see both where the team ends up and what’s in store next for Brown. His size and the numbers he’s put up in his time as a three year starter have shown that he could certainly stand out at the next level.
“We want to make it to the Chiles Center and we want to do some damage over there. Personally, I just want to come out a better player than I ever was and help my younger teammates to get them to where they need to be for next year,” Brown said.