By Ed Piper
Evan Brown entered La Jolla's game against Otay Ranch Dec. 8 in the second quarter and logged six rebounds, including five offensive rebounds, which is notable for the reserve. That is his highest total so far this season through five games.
The 6'2" junior's game is definitely near the basket. He's not an outside shooter at this point. His game is grabbing the ball off the glass and pounding it back up to the basket.
His presence gives the Vikings an additional big man near the paint, along with starter Charlie Gal.
In the championship game play-by-play, Brown took a while to make his presence known. At the end of the second quarter, just before halftime, he was awarded two free throws on a shot attempt on which he got fouled. He didn't make either of those.
He did make both free throws on a foul on his putback attempt with 24.2 seconds left in the third quarter. Those were helpful points, because at the time the Mustangs were scratching their way back into the ballgame after trailing by 20 points at the 5:23 mark of the quarter. As a result of the Brown charity tosses, La Jolla temporarily increased an eroding 13-point lead to 15 points.
The Viking lead eventually dwindled to a scary seven points, first with 5:55 left in the now-tightening contest, again at 2:40. La Jolla faithfuls' throats were constricting at those points, hoping against hope that the advantage La Jolla had held throughout the game wouldn't disappear in the ultimate outcome.
La Jolla ended up taking home the Hilltop Invitational championship, narrowly holding on to ride effective free throwing to an 11-point win, 59-48.
Just before the pair of free throws at the end of the third period, Brown had been reinserted into the game at the 1:53 mark. He committed an offensive foul under the basket simultaneous with teammate Behzad Hashemi's three-pointer from outside--which, fortunately, didn't negate the trey, but it did result in Evan's third foul, which in a tight game could come into play by limiting his availability if he gets into foul trouble.
Probably the good point of his foul, for shoving an opponent while trying to get rebounding position, was the aggressiveness he was showing.
It's for marquee value that a player starts, but the most important sign is which players a coach uses at the end of games when the outcome is being contested. Brown, though not in the top five for crunch time at this point--presently made up of Gal, Hashemi, Jacob Ohara, Nick Hulquist, and Quinn Rawdin--is edging a little closer to that status.
But more significant are the quality minutes that Brown can contribute to his team, as he gets more comfortable in his first month on the varsity as a junior newcomer, and as he deals with his shortness-of-breath issue he says is undiagnosed but which didn't seem to come into play when his minutes were selective.
In Evan's previous tournament games, he grabbed 2, 4, 4, and 4 rebounds, respectively. Against Helix, which treated the Vikings roughly in their only Hilltop tourney loss on the way to the title, a 67-45 loss Dec. 2, he had four fouls, indicating he was willing to be aggressive even though the Highlanders had control of the game. Sometimes a player, seeing his team is getting beat, will withdraw from being aggressive and give up going against the flow.
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