For many standout basketball players, there’s a gap of only a few months between the end of their final game as a high school senior and the start of their collegiate career on the hardwood.
But that was not Zay Brown’s journey. And perhaps because it’s not, his debut season was the finest that any Fighting Scot hoopster has ever put together.
In February, Brown was named not only the Midwest Conference’s Newcomer of the Year but its Player of the Year. He had a slam-dunk case after leading the Scots to the regular-season title and topping all MWC players in rebounds (9.0) and blocks (35) while ranking fifth in scoring (18.2).
Watching a game like the one he had late in the season against Cornell, when he scored 31 points and hauled down 19 rebounds as the Fighting Scots clinched the outright MWC title, it might seem that Brown’s dominance at the D3 level was a given. But that hasn’t been the case at all.
“I worked my ass off to get here,” said Brown in the athletic office room overlooking the Glennie Gym floor where, a few weeks earlier, the Scots’ season ended with a tough 81-79 setback in the MWC tourney.
Pre-COVID hoops
“I first picked up a basketball when I was 6,” said Brown, who grew up in Peoria, Illinois. “It wasn’t until I was 11 that I really knew I wanted to play. My dad got me into AAU ball, and I really started to take it seriously.”
Helping matters was a growth spurt that took him from around 5-foot-9 as an eighth grader to 6-2 as a sophomore, the same year he threw down his first dunk in a game for Peoria’s Quest Charter Academy. Spurred on by talented teammate Chaz Sardin, he became a varsity starter that year.
“I saw what he did, and I wanted to take after his footsteps,” said Brown, who now stands 6-6.
“Isaiah has been so consistent. But I don’t need him to be just average, he needs to be better than that. He knows what we need every night. I don’t have to write anything up for him or motivate him at all. He is at another level.”
That sentiment might have passed through Monmouth coach Todd Skrivseth’s head a time or two during the season, but it is actually a quotation from Quest coach Dustin Brooks, who spoke those words during Brown’s senior season, which ended in 2020, just as COVID began. And Brown was, indeed, at another level at Quest, eclipsing Sardin’s school scoring record and earning Class 1A second team all-state honors.
But there’s a long time between early 2020 and late 2024, when Brown played his first game for Monmouth, and the action canceled by the pandemic only accounts for a small part of it. For part of the time, Brown was at prep academies in Florida and Indiana.
“I did good in prep ball,” said Brown. “I learned a lot about my body and a lot about work ethic.”
The Indiana connection led to his first experience with college basketball at Ball State University.
“I tried to walk on there,” he said. “It was a good experience, I’d say. I didn’t want to redshirt, and then the coach got fired (following the 2021-22 season). So I took a year off and just went to school. After Ball State, everybody gave up on me. I felt alone.”
Making it Monmouth
Importantly, though, two people didn’t give up on him. One was Brown himself.
“I talked to Coach Brooks, just weighing my options,” he said. “And honestly, I just worked really hard to get back on the court. I persevered, and it means a lot to me. I appreciate Coach Skriv taking a chance on me.”
“He reached out to us,” said Skrivseth, who was well aware of Brown’s exploits with Quest. “Needless to say, I was excited. He had some things to get right academically. We came up with a plan for him.”
Complicating matters, though, was that Quest permanently closed, so transcripts were hard to come by.
“We eventually got him into a position where Monmouth was an option,” said Skrivseth.
But then there was the whole other matter of Brown’s absence from the game.
“He hadn’t played for three years, so we knew there were going be some adjustments,” said Skrivseth. “Part of it was just getting back in the flow of going to school, being on a campus, living in a dorm. We had to negotiate all that first and get his feet on the ground. I’m sure there were some doubts he had, but he’s worked extremely hard.”
Brown made his official return to the court Nov. 13 in Glennie Gym during Monmouth’s 93-79 victory over Westminster. In 26 minutes, Brown netted 27 points, hitting 10-of-16 field goals and 5-of-5 free throws.
“It felt good, like I was finally in the right place,” said Brown, who’s majoring in exercise science and has an interest in athletic training. “Being around a crowd, just hoopin’ – it brought back all the good memories. I was trying not to tear up.”
Flash forward to late February, when Brown learned he’d been selected as the MWC Player of the Year.
“I was so surprised,” he said. “I was in a class. I about had to turn away and shed a tear.”
And the accolades have kept coming. In March, he was named first team all-region by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and second team all-region by d3hoops.com. His 473 points and 235 rebounds are both Monmouth records for a freshman, and he had seven double-doubles during the season.
“He’s a better teammate than he is a player,” praised Skrivseth. “When your best player is a tremendous teammate, you feel extremely fortunate as a coach. And he can get a lot better. That’s what we’ve been discussing. There’s another level he can get to, no question.”
One of those areas of improvement is extending his range. Brown shot an extremely solid 60.4% from inside the arc, but would like to convert some of his longer two-point shots into baskets from three-point range.
“I really worked on my mid-range game coming into this year,” said Brown. “My man (teammate) Kam Banks told me, ‘I think you’re a mid-range guy.’ It’s kind of a lost art. But I’m still working on my three. I didn’t take as many as I should have.”
So the quest of reaching new levels continues for Brown, who aspires to keep his basketball career going beyond college. It would be no surprise to see his years of hard work keep paying off.
***Courtesy of Barry McNamara, Monmouth College***
