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Blue Ridge’s Brown commits to Syracuse

Photo by Malachi Keys

Maliq Brown may have been headed down a path to a promising football career at one time, but Saturday confirmed what everyone already knew by now — his future is in basketball.

 

On Saturday afternoon, after much anticipation, Blue Ridge power forward Maliq Brown made his decision to continue his basketball career at Syracuse University.

 

“Before I even got there on campus, the relationships I built with the coaches and the players that were already there…they made me feel welcome even before I announced that I was coming to Syracuse to visit,” said Brown. “It was just unbelievable.”

 

Brown came to Blue Ridge as a heralded football player and was a second team All-State pick in 2019, but soon his love for basketball overtook his love for football. After being brought into the hoops program by Blue Ridge coach Cade Lemcke, he slowly realized basketball was what he wanted to do and now the 6-foot-9, 210-pound forward is headed to the ACC.

 

“He was a reserve that played very few minutes in his freshman year on varsity, but there were a couple of times during that season where in our press and our defense he made a couple of plays that I looked at coach Conway and said: ‘He’s going to be much better than we thought he was going to be,’” Lemcke said.

 

He’s steadily improved and averaged 12.9 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 3.3 steals and 1.6 blocks per game. Brown is an elite defender and has unleashed an array of dunks and ridiclous defensive plays in particular over the last couple of years.

 

Brown also had other notable offers from Georgetown, Virginia Tech, Penn State, and North Carolina State. However, from the jump, Syracuse stood out to him.

 

Syracuse is one of the nation’s most historically successful basketball programs, and Hall of Fame head coach Jim Boeheim at the helm for the Orange who are perennial contenders for the ACC title. Not to mention, Justin Taylor and Quadir Copeland from the IMG Academy are also in Brown’s recruiting class, making Syracuse and Brown’s futures very bright.

 

For now though, Brown has one more year with the Barons, and he’ll be one of the top players for Blue Ridge, the reigning state champions who are going to be looking to add another trophy to the case. 

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