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Following a four-year profession at Dayton, the place he led the nation in three-point proportion final season, Washington Heights native Koby Brea is heading south to the varsity of his goals, the College of Kentucky.
It began at these courts on Nagle Ave. Within the coronary heart of Washington Heights, a neighborhood north of Harlem, tucked behind the hallowed most important courtroom of Dyckman Park, lies a smaller half-court lined with a singular black fence. It’s there {that a} younger Koby Brea fostered his love for the sport. Only a few blocks away from his dad or mum’s residence, Koby would go to the courtroom and meet up together with his mates and different native youngsters to draft their very own groups and hoop all through
the day.
When he was 6, he would lace up his kicks, seize his ball and head down the road together with his dad, Stephan, to fulfill up together with his pop’s mates. They’d journey from park to park, hooping to their hearts’ content material. “They nonetheless play to at the present time. I don’t know the way, however they do,” Koby says. And there was Koby, witnessing that love for the sport in actual time.
“Being round it, all you are able to do is absolutely watch and benefit from the experience,” he says. “Any time they ran down a method, I’d be on the opposite half making an attempt to shoot, making an attempt to get my ball and be fast earlier than they got here again down.”
A couple of years later, he was waking up at 5 a.m. to work out at those self same courts. Everybody sleeping whereas he was working? That was the most effective motivation.
Dyckman set the usual for who Koby Brea needed to be. In 2024, that will be the most effective shooter in school basketball and the most recent addition for Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats.
Fifteen years after first being launched to the concrete courts, Koby is again at Dyckman. It’s a piping scorching mid-August afternoon and the solar is unrelenting. Pay it no thoughts, Koby’s suited in a full Eric Emanuel child blue tracksuit with matching “Industrial Blue” Air Jordan 4s on-foot. After watching him be taught to play and finally compete in the summertime Dyckman tournaments, his father, mom and youngest brother Tyler now stand off to the facet as we snap photographs. It’s a household affair. For the Breas and Washington Heights, that’s at all times been the case.
“Rising up in Washington Heights, it’s like having a very massive household round you,” Brea explains. “You’re simply round an entire bunch of individuals which might be similar to you, that come from the identical tradition, the identical background. We’ve got a number of Dominicans, a number of Latin individuals, and any time you’re strolling down the road, you see any person that’s similar to you, that appears similar to you, talks similar to you. It simply seems like household.”
The limitless hours spent surrounded by his group, on and off the courtroom, set the stage for his dedication to those that have poured into him. As he stands at middle courtroom with Tyler dribbling round his legs, he sees his personal childhood mirrored again at him. It’s an eerily acquainted feeling, one he skilled only a few weeks previous to our shoot when he first stepped foot contained in the Joe Craft Heart in Lexington. For years, Koby envisioned himself suiting up within the Huge Blue. Now it’s a actuality.
“You see all of the blood, sweat and tears that was put into that gymnasium that I simply walked into,” he says of that go to.
When Koby wasn’t dicing it up at Dyckman, he was watching Karl-Anthony Cities, Devin Booker and the remainder of the mid-2010s Wildcats. He longed to get pictures up beneath the burden of the eight banners that hung above. That stage of status was fascinating. So he aimed for it.
Koby remembers the primary time his coach at Monsignor Scanlan Excessive Faculty introduced him to the campus within the Bronx. As they made small discuss in regards to the crew and the varsity, the coach requested Koby the place he needed to play on the subsequent stage.
“I bear in mind I used to be a child with massive goals and I informed him, I wish to go to the College of Kentucky,” Koby says. “And he checked out my dad and he was like, You’ve obtained a wild one. I don’t know if I can get you to Kentucky, however I’ll make sure that I get you someplace. That simply goes to indicate that when you might have individuals round you which might be assured in you, wish to push you probably the most you possibly can, you even have that confidence in your self that that is what I wish to be and that’s how I’m going to make it. It units it off for your self.”
Heading into the 2024-25 season, Koby Brea’s not solely suiting up for Kentucky, he’s anticipated to assist this system seize nationwide prominence as soon as once more.
However the Washington Heights native didn’t simply get to the blue blood of his goals. He grinded his method towards the chance. Popping out of Scanlan as a second crew All-New York choice, Koby set his sights on a profession as a Dayton Flyer. He took residence A-10 Sixth Man of the 12 months in his redshirt freshman season, however suffered a pair of stress fractures in every of his legs the next yr that prevented him from taking that subsequent leap he was prepared for.
As a substitute, he spent the summer season getting kind taking pictures in whereas sitting in his wheelchair. It took the whole thing of the offseason and a portion of the preseason to completely recuperate. With simply two weeks of practices and conditioning below his belt, Koby proceeded to gentle practically each internet within the nation on hearth, main the Flyers into the second spherical of March Insanity.
On 201 makes an attempt, Koby led the nation in three-point proportion, nailing 49.8 p.c of his pictures from past the arc. Sorry, undecided in the event you caught that. Koby Brea hit rattling close to half of his pictures from downtown. Throw in 11.1 factors and practically 4 boards a sport and the accolades began to movement. A second A-10 Sixth Man of the 12 months honor was appropriately bestowed and similar to that, Koby was immediately on the radar of each main powerhouse within the nation. On the finish of the day, Kentucky at all times had the higher hand.
“This yr I simply actually needed to take the chance to take a step again so I might take a pair steps ahead. I got here again to varsity with the expectation that every one I used to be going to do that summer season was work,” Brea says. “Work as exhausting as I might, work the toughest that I ever had, simply to make sure that I had an awesome yr at an awesome new place.”
The wait, the work, it was all price it. He made his stamp at Dyckman. He discovered himself at Dayton and inscribed himself into the faculty basketball file books. Now he’s placing up pictures in the identical gymnasium Booker did practically a decade in the past, as visions of the 2025 NBA Draft develop nearer and nearer to actuality. However within the right here and now, Koby Brea is letting these years price of classes information him as he takes it daily. He’s stronger, more healthy and extra deadly than ever with the ball in his arms. And as he turns the chapter to his collegiate epilogue, there’s a looming purpose that Koby’s longed for ever since he took these walks to Dyckman together with his dad.
“The expectation is just to hold the ninth banner. Me, I’m a real competitor, and I delight myself on profitable. I positively wish to go away my stamp all over the place I am going. Being at Kentucky, the usual is so excessive and everyone expects success,” Koby says. “I simply wish to have the chance, daily, to continue to grow and be the most effective model of myself.”
Portraits by Alexander Zhang and UK Athletics.
