Brady Scarbrough always gravitated toward baseball.
Growing up, baseball is the first sport Scarbrough loved, so it was natural for him to want to play it as long as possible.
But something clicked in the seventh grade and Scarbrough found a new love: basketball.
“I played Upward Basketball one year and then I came (to Victory Christian Academy in Columbus) and they asked me to play,” Scarbrough said. “It was just fun. I enjoyed it. I wasn’t really good at it back then, but was fun.”
Basketball is still fun for Scarbrough, but the 6-foot-4, 175-pound senior guard can do so much more. No longer a “role player” who used to score primarily on layups, Scarbrough has worked hard to polish his skills and become a team leader for the VCA boys basketball team. Last week in a 94-58 victory against Meadowview Christian in Columbus, Scarbrough had a career-high 58 points, eight rebounds, and 10 steals.
For his efforts, Scarbrough is The Dispatch’s Prep Player of the Week.
“My team helped set me up,” Scarbrough said. “We went into halftime and it was kind of a close game. My teammates helped set me up in the second half, and it just clicked from there.”
Scarbrough said he didn’t know he had so many points until the scorekeeper told him he had 56. He said he tried to convince VCA coach Heath Simpson to keep him in the game late in the fourth quarter so he could hit 60. He said Simpson told him he should have made a few more free throws and took him out of the game because he didn’t want to get hurt.
Scarbrough said he grew four inches in the summer between high eighth- and ninth-grade years at VCA. He said his coordination kept up with his growth spurt, which enabled him to develop at a faster pace as he grew to 6 feet.
“It just kind of clicked after that,” Scarbrough said. “I was practicing for JV (junior varsity) and varsity, so I kind of got double practice in. That helped a lot.”
Since then, Scarbrough said he has honed his shooting and ballhandling. He said he feels comfortable shooting from 3-point range and attacking the basket. He believes the extra work he puts in after games and in the offseason has pushed him to new heights.
Last season, Scarbrough was one of the go-to players on a team that went 25-5 and beat Providence, Tabernacle Christian, and two-time reigning champion and undefeated Union Chapel to win the Alabama Christian Athletic Association championship in Oxford, Alabama. Scarbrough helped make up for the losses of high-scoring Anthony Sharp, Cody Bolton, and three other seniors from a team that lost only one game and scored 39 points in the title game.
On Monday, Scarbrough helped lead VCA to a 66-61 victory against Tuscaloosa Home Educators. The win helped the Eagles to improve to 8-0.
Through seven games, Scarbrough was averaging 35.4 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 4.4 steals, and 2.1 blocked shots per game. Jake Hudgens, Jordan Payne, Austin Braswell, Monterell Neal II, and John Hunter Johnson are the team’s other seniors.
Scarbrough continued to work on his game in the offseason as a member of the Caledonia Kings 18-and-under Amateur Athletic Union basketball team. The squad includes players from many of the local high schools, including Caledonia, New Hope, Columbus, Heritage Academy, and West Point. Scarbrough, who was in his first season with the team after ankle surgery kept him out of action last summer, played guard on the team and said he enjoyed the experience playing against a higher level of competition. He feels working with a new group of players and fitting in with a new group will help him continue his basketball career in college. He said he isn’t sure where he would like to play and that he plans to investigate his options more closely following the high school season.
“I think I showed I can compete,” Scarbrough said. “It was different from (VCA), but I liked it. It pushed me.”
Simpson, who is in his second season leading the boys basketball program after working as an assistant coach and junior varsity coach for former coach Brent Harris, said Scarbrough is a team leader who can do a variety of things on the court.
“He is very fundamentally sound,” Simpson said. “He is a gym rat. He stays in the gym working on his shot. He is constantly striving to get better.”
Simpson said Scarbrough has worked hard to improve his ballhandling. He feels he still needs to work on his defense and to get stronger to improve his chances of earning an opportunity to play basketball in college. He believes Scarbrough’s work ethic will help him realize that goal.
“He loves the game. He really does,” Simpson said. “He is always asking questions about what he can do to get better. He is an overall player.
“He just has to be noticed (to get a chance to play basketball in college). We’re doing everything we can to help him get noticed. We’re putting highlights out there. He has a highlight reel on YouTube. He will get better at the next level because he has that work ethic.”
Scarbrough knows there are plenty parts of his game he needs to improve. He said defense is an area Simpson has stressed to him, so he is making an effort to play tougher on that end of the floor, especially since his steals can result in easy offense. He said it still hasn’t sunk in that he outscored an entire team on a night where he felt in the zone.
Scarbrough laughed when asked if he felt he would mature into a player who could score 58 points in a game. He said he never imagined it because he always thought he would be a baseball player. Now, basketball is front and center.
“I didn’t think I would be able to go to college for it,” Scarbrough said of basketball. “I really wanted to be good at basketball. I had fun, so it would be great to be good at it and have fun. I started putting in the work and hoping I would get better and I got better.
“I am happy with where I am, but I still have a lot more work to do to get where I need to be.”
Victory Christian will play Cahawba Christian Academy on Friday om Centreville, Alabama. It will play Kosciusko on Wednesday, Dec. 28, in the East Webster High School tournament.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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