Thursday, October 18, 2007
Brandenburg’s decision was well thought-out
Coach predicts bright future
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's UVa Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
See Doug and Randy talk sports every week with the Sports edition of the TimesCast
Recent columns
To understand John Brandenburg’s decision-making process in choosing Virginia, it helps to know a little bit of his history.
Brandenburg, a promising 6-foot-11 basketball prospect from St. Louis, visited UVa over the weekend of Sept. 7-9 with hopes of reaching a decision shortly after he returned home.
By the time he notified the UVa staff of his decision last weekend, approximately five weeks had elapsed.
For most prospects, it’s a process unlike anything they’ve ever experienced before, but not Brandenburg.
As an eighth-grader in the Kirkwood, Mo., school system, Brandenburg had several choices. He could have stayed in public school and gone to Kirkwood Senior High School or he could have gone to one of several strong private schools in the area.
After some deliberation, Brandenburg and his family decided that he would enroll at Christian Brothers College High School as a ninth-grader.
Not long after that, Brandenburg had a chance of heart and decided he preferred another all-male Catholic school, DeSmet Jesuit High School.
Brandenburg was reminded of that process often in the past month.
“It definitely affected my decision because I really didn’t want to go through that again with college,” he said. “I didn’t want to tell one place that I wanted to go there and then have to decommit.
“One of the reasons I took so long with this decision was, I wanted it to be right the first time.
“It was pretty stressful [in 2004]. In St. Louis, it’s different from most places because they’ve got a couple of places where a lot of guys want to go and they’re really competitive to get into. Most people have a line of heritage and just go to that school, but I didn’t.”
Brandenburg’s interest in basketball was whetted by his involvement with a travel team that went to the AAU Nationals following his eighth grade. But he wasn’t specializing at that point and even played ninth-grade football, along with lacrosse, soccer and baseball.
Brandeburg started on the DeSmet varsity basketball team as a sophomore, when he averaged 11.1 points and 4.7 rebounds. His rebounding improved last season but he was injured at various stages of the year and finished with 8.2 points and 7.9 rebounds per game.
“He missed six games last year because of injuries and it really affected us as a team,” DeSmet coach Bob Steiner said. “He never really got into the flow because he’d get hurt, then be out a while, play a couple of games, then get hurt again. I think he sprained both ankles and had some issues with his back.”
Steiner thinks Brandenburg’s best days are ahead of him and hopes that includes the 2007-2008 season.
“Actually, he’s a shade over 6-11 [and] weighs, I guess, about 225 or 230,” said Steiner, who has been at DeSmet for 21 years, the last 11 as head coach. “He’s extremely athletic, runs the floor well, jumps well, catches well – all the things you’d like a big man to be able to do.
“He’s very tenacious, very driven, highly motivated. He’s very bright.”
That’s a lot of positives.
“I think so,” Steiner said.
DeSmet is the alma mater of Steve Stipanovich, who actually was recruited by Virginia before signing with Missouri,
Steiner says it is premature to compare Brandenburg to Stipanovich.
“Steve’s the greatest player ever to play here and John is different from Steve,” Steiner said. “John is not a tremendously polished offensive player right now. What everybody sees in John is a tremendous upside because of his athleticism.
“He had a decent sophomore year. He had a disappointing junior year because of injuries. He’s got great potential, but I think it was coach [Bob] Knight who said, ‘Potential only refers to a guy who hasn’t done anything yet.’ ”
Brandenburg’s height and athleticism “are things you can’t teach or coach,” Steiner continued. “His offensive skills need work. He’s not awful. If he was awful, they wouldn’t have recruited him.”
One of Brandenburg’s problems last year was a cyst on the wrist of his shooting hand.
“Every time I shot, it was painful,” Brandenburg said. “I know it sounds like I’m just rattling off injuries, but it seems like I’d be on the floor for a week and then I’d get injured again.”
Said Brandenburg: “A lot of development is needed but I’m really willing to work for it.”
As of Wednesday, Steiner said he still had not sat down with Brandenburg since the weekend but had heard about the commitment to Virginia from the staffs at both UVa and Stafford.
“I had no idea,” Steiner said. “ I knew it was down to Stanford and Virginia. I was shocked he let go some of the schools he let go.”
Brandenburg had a final five of Virginia, Stanford, Missouri, Wisconsin and Florida. It was Steiner’s sense that Brandenburg also could have gone to Kentucky.
“Primarily Kentucky and Florida were the ones that made you go ‘oof,’ “ Steiner said. “I can’t speak for Florida but [Kentucky] coach Billy Gillispie was here and I talked to coach [Glynn] Ciprien daily.
“Plus, my daughter was a senior at Kentucky. I know they tried to work him real hard but John wasn’t interested.”
Other schools had done too much legwork for Brandenburg to give the Wildcats much consideration.
“Kentucky moved in for a little while,” he said. “They were a little late, so it was a little harder. It’s always hard to accept a school because you know they were looking at so many other guys before you.”
It was as much a credit to Virginia academically as it was athletically that the Cavaliers reached the final two with Stanford.
“I would never want to put down any of the other schools,” said Brandenburg, a 3.9 student. “Some of them are really great schools, but I really just wanted a strong academic tradition. So, it wasn’t that difficult to narrow it down from the five to the two.”
Brandenburg’s father is an attorney, his mother is a speech pathologist, an older sister just graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., and a 6-7 older brother is playing junior-college basketball after beginning his college career at the Division II level.
Brandenburg’s dad is 6-6 and his mom is over 6 feet, so it’s no surprise that John is now 7 feet in shoes.
“My parents were really supportive of both schools and didn’t want to take sides,” Brandeburg said. “That made it even harder, with them stepping aside and letting me take all the responsibility for this decision.”
At least he’d been there before.
