Freshman point guard Kamyron Brown found a familiar face racing downcourt more than once during a recent scrimmage at McArthur Court.
With his “yellow” team down 10, Brown grabbed a defensive rebound, split two defenders, cocked the ball back and darted a bounce pass to none other than 6-foot-7 forward Drew Viney, who – surprise – already knew what his friend since kindergarten was thinking.
Halfway down the court, Viney only needed two dribbles and a few wide strides to finish for a dunk.
“If I go to the basket, I already know where he is gonna be and he already knows where I’m gonna be, so it’s a good chemistry we have,” Brown said.
Brown-to-Viney has been the sight, and more often the spectacle, since the beginning – two unpolished fourth-graders on an AAU team. Up until Brown went to Mater Dei High School and Viney to Villa Park, Southern California hadn’t known any differently.
Yet, the two almost ended up on different squads again, one recruited heavily by Arizona and the other by California.
Brown, 19, seemed destined to play ball in Tucson. He went to the 1997 NCAA Championship game between Arizona and Kentucky and watched his cousin – Miles Simon, now an assistant coach at Arizona – jump up and down in celebration after winning.
“I considered Arizona because that’s been in my blood ever since I was a little kid,” Brown said.
But even Simon – whom Brown gets calls and texts from on a weekly basis – knew that a better opportunity awaited him at Oregon, where it appears more minutes will be available at the point guard position.
Meanwhile, Viney, 19, had his reservations about playing in Berkeley.
“Kam just wasn’t gonna be there,” he said. “I just needed someone who was gonna be there for me to play on the court with and to hang out with when I was tired and lonely at home.”
By the time Brown called Viney to say he’d be a Duck, Viney had already committed to California.
“Kam called and said, ‘Drew, I’m gonna go to Oregon. You gotta look into it,’” Viney said. “I was like, ‘Kamyron I just committed to Cal, you can’t do that. Then he said, ‘Look into it, it would be a perfect fit.’”
Two weeks later, Viney was at the 2006 Oregon-Washington football game.
“And I fell in love with the place,” said Viney, who pulled out of his commitment to California and announced on Nov. 6 his decision to come to Eugene.
Now, the duo is together again.
“We technically live together for the first time,” said Viney, whose college roommate is none other than Brown. During their AAU years, Brown or Viney grabbed a bundle of clothes and stayed at the other’s home for weeks at a time.
“Kam has been my best friend and like a brother to me ever since I was a little kid,” Viney said. “Being able to come up with someone who is basically in my family and have someone who will always be there for me works out great for both of us.”
Still, Viney’s decision left him with a slightly awkward call to make to Cal coach Ben Braun, who had undergone hip surgery while recruiting him.
“Before I decided on Oregon, he told me ‘Drew, whenever you decide where you want to go, it is gonna determine how my hip is gonna do,’” said Viney, eager to get to the punch line. “So when I committed I was like, ‘Coach, your hip’s gonna be fine now. Everything is gonna be fine now.’ And then a couple weeks later, I was like, ‘Coach, I don’t know how you’re hip’s gonna be doing.’ It was bad. I felt really bad for him. But he understood perfectly. He knew the bond me and Kamyron had.”
What both have learned in practice is that they have more than each other.
“There is really no separation between the big guys and the new guys,” said Viney, who’s continued to improve on his inside-outside game. “That makes it so much easier coming in to be more relaxed when we are playing and especially outside of school it is not a total change, like you’re coming in not knowing anybody and all the guys are gonna treat you like crap. It is pretty cool to have those guys as our leaders.”
Brown, who will help fill the gaping hole left by Aaron Brooks at the point position, has speed, handle and court vision, all necessities in a giddy-up-and-go offense that is hinged just as much on control as pace.
Neither shies away from hard-nosed play either. With his team trailing 97-83 with just 47 seconds left in the scrimmage, Brown bowled his way down the lane and threw his body into Churchill Odia’s, demonstrating less of the finesse that he showed earlier and more of his fearlessness to drive. Viney ended up with a bloodied lip in the practice.
“It is easy for me to get to the basket because I am quick enough to get by people, but I was raised to penetrate and draw the defense and kick it out to the open player,” Brown said. “In college, it is a lot different rotations so I see myself with a lot of open lay-ups.”
And Kent’s up-tempo brand of basketball? Both love it.
“It fits my style of play to get out and run up and down the court and hit who’s open,” Brown said.
Viney played in a methodical, half-court offense at Villa Park, so the increased speed of play has been refreshing – plus, he said he’s in the best shape of his life after participating in all the running Kent has had the team do.
Viney said senior Malik Hairston is helping him adjust to the extreme pace.
“He’s especially shown me to speed up the way I play but to slow down so I don’t rush everything,” Viney said.
A New Beginning
Around early February – before the final week of Villa Park’s regular season – coach Kevin Reynolds announced that Viney had been dismissed from the team, citing an “accumulation” of issues.
Viney, who averaged 18 points and 12 rebounds as a junior, was scoring 28 points a game before the dismissal. Viney said he and Reynolds had a great relationship throughout his career but “did not get along” around the time he fractured his foot in the team’s first game.
“After I broke my right foot my senior year and came back we had some struggles because we didn’t get along … it worked out in the end,” Viney said.
Viney, who played in 16 games his senior year and sat out much of January, said his injury was originally diagnosed as a sprain. Enduring pain at times, he still dominated games – in a win over JSerra Catholic, Viney posted 45 points and 14 rebounds.
He played his last game Feb. 3, about a week before playoffs. That’s when he was dismissed.
“It was really tough to go into gyms and everybody knew ‘That’s Drew; he got kicked off the team last week.’ It was tough,” Viney said.
Villa Park, which finished 20-8, lost in the second round of the CIF Southern Division 1A game to Inglewood.
Ten minutes down Route 55, Brown was named Co-Trinity MVP as he led Mater Dei to a Division II State Championship.
Even after the tumultuous ending to his high school career, Viney said his past at Villa Park contains too many good memories to abandon.
“We always had older guys come back,” Viney said. “They always came back and practiced. I didn’t want to have everything end like it did, like our relationship. I didn’t want to be the guy who was like, ‘He went to Villa Park but he never comes back.’ No matter what happened, I want to come back and practice with the guys and see everybody.”
[email protected]
Birds of a feather flock together
Daily Emerald
November 5, 2007
0
More to Discover