Attention rest of the Western Athletic Conference – It’s on. Hell of a signing class for Rupp and staff. With seven of the top eight players in the rotation coming back from a team that was red hot at the end of the season the missing piece was the point guard position.
Consider that issue solved. Breaking news from the guys over at BleedTechblue.
DeAndre Brown will be running the point in Ruston next season. Who is DeAndre Brown? He’s a first team junior college All-American from Navarro JC in Texas. He was named the Region XIV Tournament’s Most Valuable Player as well as the conference MVP this season. He averaged 17.5 points and 4.5 assists in leading Navarro to the national tournament. He also scored his career-high 45 points earlier this year in a win over Temple.
Just for fun read the following from a press release after his junior year of high school.
Brown (5-11, 165), averaged 14.7 points, 7.6 assists and 3.1 steals while earning first-team all-state honors by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches (TABC) as a junior for Dunbar High School. He has been ranked as high as the 94th best prospect in the nation by Rivals.com.
He is considered one of the top 25 high prospects by several recruiting services including Clark Francis’ Hoop Scoop (7th), Tim Onkst’s Texas Roundball.com (21st) and Rivals.com (14th). Brown, recruited by Nebraska, Houston and SMU, ran the point guard position for the Dunbar Flying Wildcats to the UIL Class 4A state championship. He had 18 points, six rebounds and seven assists in Dunbar’s 95-66 win over San Antonio Brackenridge in the state title game. In addition to being named to the All-Tournament team at the state tournament, Brown was named all-region, first-team all district and was the MVP of the 2005 Whataburger Holiday Tournament.
What I love even more is the positive character traits you see in his interviews.
For example the following in an interview about playing at Navarro.
According to Brown, the experiences of playing for both Estelle and Orr has been something that has changed his life. “Playing at Navarro has helped me mature a lot,” he said. “Being here, Coach Estelle helped teach me to be humble and know that as long as God is on your team, then you can do anything. “Plus I just love my teammates. I love the coaching staff, managers, statisticians …I just love this program.”
There’s filling a need and then there’s this. I want to hug whichever assistant pulled this off.
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