Inside the Program: 2018 Brookwood Broncos

By: Kris Watkins  

After a tough 2017-18 season, the Broncos look to bounce back for the 2018-19 season and look to continue their tradition of excellence. Last season’s team finished 5 points shy of returning to the state tournament for back-to-back seasons with a heartbreaking loss to Berkmar in the Region 7-AAAAAAA tournament. It was a year of growth for a young team that included 8 losses by single digits.  The returning players have taken those experiences and used it to fuel a group that is hungry for success in the upcoming season.

Brookwood Basketball has a proud history including 14 trips to the State Tournament, 7 Sweet Sixteen Appearances, 3 Elite Eight Appearances and 1 trip to the Final Four. This year’s team looks to continue the tradition of excellence with a return to the State Tournament!

Brookwood has had over 35 student-athletes receive basketball scholarships to schools including the University of Georgia, Clemson University, Temple University, The Citadel, Virginia Military and Furman. Numerous other basketball alumni have gone on to school receiving football, baseball and track & field scholarships as well.

Our Owner/Director Kris Watkins was able to catch up with Head Coach Daniel Bowles about the Broncos pre-season program and season outlook read below.

Coach I know you have made a major shift in recent years in your off season program, what can you tell us about how the Broncos get better during the off season?

Our summer program is vital to the success of our team with a combination of skill development, team development and building a foundation in the weightroom.

We workout 4 mornings a week from 7:00am – 10:00am during the month of June.  We’ve found that the early time slot takes away many of our conflicts (jobs, football, enjoying summer, etc) and our guys get their basketball fix in to start the day!!  We are on the floor from about 7:00am – 9:00am working on mostly skill development, but also adding in some of our team concepts that we’ll be implementing in 2018-19.  The last hour of the workout is in the weightroom where we work on fundamentals of our basic lifts so that our players have proper form going into our pre-season workouts in August.

In addition to our workouts, we also like to have some team competition and team building.  Typically we practice with other local teams 2-3 times during the month and also play in a couple of team camps.  We always finish our June program with a trip to an overnight camp.  I LOVE what an overnight camp does for us in building our team.  In addition to the games, each of our players has a notebook where we talk about goal setting, areas to improve, etc.

In July, the majority of our players are playing AAU, but we still open the gym for shooting and weights for anyone that wants to get in extra work.  It is not mandatory, but for many of our kids that don’t have access to a gym and weightroom this is a great chance to get in a few hours of work a week.

Our preseason program is constantly evolving depending upon our group (skill level, number of returners, etc).  Currently, we are very fortunate to have Jeff Bennum (former Elbert County head coach) on staff and he is as good as it gets in the weightroom.  Coach Bennum pushes our guys to the limit and we’ve seen great results since he joined the staff three years ago.  He runs a college style strength and conditioning program that our players are involved in year round.  The rest of our coaching staff works returning players in our GHSA approved 4 man workouts.  These workouts are huge in skill development and the teaching of the basics of our motion offense.  GHSA’s change to allow 4 man workouts has been huge for us in terms of being prepared for the first day of practice in terms of skill level and knowledge of our motion offense where we can jump right in with games rapidly approaching.

Leading into the season we participate in Championship Week.  The activities of Championship Week push our guys physically and mentally in the weightroom, on the track and on the court as we head into the season.  This is a great way to get our guys some conditioning, but more importantly do it together as they have to push each other to be successful in all of the events as many try to break thru barriers they couldn’t accomplish on their own.

What can you tell us about your scheduling for this season?  I know in the past you have really focused on tough out of region matchups while also focusing on getting better as the season progresses to get you ready for the region/state tournament.

I am a firm believer in playing the best possible opponents to prepare you for the region / state tournament.  During the 2016-17 season we started the season 1-7.  Everyone on the outside was freaking out, but our coaches and players knew that we played a very tough schedule on purpose.  We finished the regular season 9-1 (only loss to Norcross) and took that momentum to go on to the Quarterfinals of the State Tournament.  Our team won 2 state tournament games on the road and our kids believed because we knew that we had been through the fire and were prepared for anything

This year will be no different, in addition to non-region contests vs Grayson, Cedar Shoals, Duluth, South Gwinnett and Archer (all state tournament teams in 2017-18) we will also compete in the GDP Challenge against Gainesville and play in the inaugural North Georgia High School Showcase at the University of North Georgia.

We are very fortunate to host the Deep South Classic which has been a holiday staple for over twenty-five years featuring some of the top programs in the southeast.  This year’s field includes teams from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida

Returning Varsity Players

We have 6 returning varsity players, including three year letter winners (Smalls / Davidson) that bring great experience from playing on the 2016-17 State Quarterfinal Team

SR Chris Smalls – 7.5 points/game (40-100 3’s —> 40%) —> career high 23 points vs Cambridge (7-13 3’s)

SR Spencer Davidson – 6’5 forward / 2 year starter —> played in 56 varsity games / 135 points / 149 rebounds

SR CJ Walker – 4.2 points/game (28-74 3’s —> 38%) —> career high 21 points vs Central Gwinnett (5-8 3’s)

SR Xavier Smith

SR Jay Chauhan

SR Bernard Jackson

Others to Watch

6’7 JR Varun Danak

6’2 JR Daniel Layton

Over the last 4 years you have had a number of players move on to the Next Level can you update us on where the former Broncos are playing?

We take pride in our Bronco Family.  In our locker room, our newly installed wall-wrap includes the Chinese proverb – “Drink the Water, But remember who Dug the Well.”  This reminds our current players of the hard work and sacrifice of those that came before them to make Brookwood such a special place.

JR Micah Kinsey – UNC-Pembroke (2 time Peach Belt Champion / 2 NCAA Tournament appearances)

SO Donald “Bubba” Parham – Virginia Military Institute (2017-18 SoCon Freshman of the Year)

SO Trae Higginbotham – Auburn University-Montgomery

SO Markus Smith – Kennesaw State University

FR Taj Adams – Dominican University

FR Toju Etiwe – Oglethorpe University

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