Date 11/23 || Time 4:00 || Venue Cameron Indoor Stadium || Video ACC Network
Duke will play Kenny Blakeney’s Howard on Sunday in the third leg (fourth if you count UCF in the exhibition season) of the Brotherhood Run.
The second leg, this weekend anyway, was won by Howard on Saturday, as the Bisons handled Niagara, 80-70.
Bryce Harris scored 20 points and had 5 boards for the Bison as they prep for Duke.
Harris, a 6-4 senior has played for Bison his entire five-year career, which is rare these days. He’s having a great senior season with 22.4 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 3.4 assists and 1.8 steals. On top of that, he’s killing it from behind the line, hitting 52.2% of his threes and 54.5% overall. That’s damn good.
Cam Gillus, a 5-11 junior from Tommy Amaker’s hometown of Falls Church, Va, gets 9.8 ppg, 3.6 boards and 4.8 assists.
Alex Cotton, a 6-5 junior, is getting 14.3 ppg, 2 boards and 1.3 assists.
Danas Kazakevicius, a 6-10 Lithuanian, is putting up modest numbers, but numbers aren’t everything. He’s averaging 6.3 points, 3 rebounds and 2.8 assists.
Travelle Bryson is a rising Bison. Just a sophomore, he’s 6-5 and contributes 6.2 ppg and 3.4 rebounds.
Ed Holland is a 6-6 senior from Philly who’s drawing 4.6 points and 4.6 rebounds.
Ose Okojie is a 6-5 senior who gets 7 ppg and 2.6 rebounds.
Jeremiah Johnson is a 6-3 freshman who doesn’t make a big statistical splash and who is only shooting 35.3% so far. Still, if Americans were more aware of their own history he could have one of the best and most worrisome nicknames in college basketball.
Isaiah Brown is a 6-1 sophomore with minimal stats who rounds out the rotation.
Blakeney of course played at Duke and worked for fellow Brotherhood member Tommy Amaker at Harvard.
He grew up in the DMV and played for the legendary Morgan Wooten at DeMatha High and it’s no accident that he’s back home in D.C.
And he’s not your typical coach.
Blakeney is at home with the X’s and O’s, recruiting and all the rest of it, but he’s also focused on producing young men who are prepared for success, fatherhood and the general challenges of life.
In other words, he’s a good man.
What should we expect from his team?
Well, Howard hasn’t really played anyone of note other than Missouri, where former Blue Devil Mark Mitchell had 9 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists.
He should have learned a lot from mentors like Wooten, Krzyzewski and Amaker. Wooten was a superb teacher. Coach K was too, but he has always been a superb motivator. Amaker is quiet and low-key, but has a brilliant basketball mind.
So while we don’t know a lot about this Howard team, we expect it will reflect Blakeney’s influences: they’ll have solid fundamentals (Wooten), they’ll defend and play with passion (Coach K) and they’ll play smart (all three).
Duke is going to be favored and should be obviously, but you can’t overlook what Blakeney has built at Howard. He inherited a 4-29 team, walked right into Covid, was just 1-4 in his second season, then started winning. And winning at Howard, like any MEAC school, is not easy. He fell back a bit last season but other than than that, he’s been winning consistently and has, in fact, gotten two NCAA bids.
As noted, Duke should be heavily favored, but don’t kid yourself: Howard will likely punch above their weight. Maybe not enough to upset Duke in Cameron, but the Bison will come to play.
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