Alderson Broaddus basketball is coming off a back-to-back G-MAC regular season and tournament championship. The team has a record of 47-12 in the past two seasons. AB will be returning conference player of the year Malcolm Tatum next season along with second-team all-conference performers Thylas Perkins and Richard Lemon. The Battlers will be returning 11 varsity players from this past season's team. But there is no break for this coaching staff as they are already on the recruiting trail looking to replace two scholarship seniors in Ali Bilal and Tobias Dowdell.
Word surfaced last week that AB has offered Harford Community College sophomore Brandon Spain who was named the MD JUCO tournament MVP. Spain is a guard that averaged 20 points per game to go along with 6.4 rebounds per game. Spain missed the first half of the season for Harford due to an early season injury. With that said, he still received 1st-team All-Maryland JUCO regular season honors for his performances in an ultra-competitive JUCO conference.
What will be impressive to a lot of Battler fans is that Spain had 54 steals which placed him second on the team overall for the season. This stat comes despite Spain only playing in the last 17 games for Harford. The team leader in that category had 62 steals by playing 32 games. This is a big eye-opener considering Coach Greg Zimmerman's knack for teaching great defense. If Spain were to join the Battlers, he would fill in nicely for senior Ali Bilal who has been the team's best on-the-ball defender the past two seasons.
Spain also shot a solid 87.3% from the free throw line. His ability to penetrate would give the Battlers an option of not only scoring but dishing to one of the returning all-conference forwards. Watching Spain's video on youtube shows incredible overall talent. He is extremely quick handily the ball, shoots well outside, can break a defender down off the dribble and has excellent jumping ability for a player who is 5'10" tall. Spain is very explosive to the basket as the video shows. Spain would also give the Battlers another ball-handler in what appears to be more transition and fast-break potential for the team. His ability to break defenders down gives another potent scoring option in Greg Zimmerman's motion and cut-flex offenses. If he were to come to AB, it would probably be the best backcourt AB has had since Terrell Eargle (3rd team All-American) and Stan Hall (2nd team All-American) were on the court together. Let's not forget that stellar combo led AB to four straight NCAA tournaments.
Spain also presents the Battler team with a guy who is known as a winner on the court (which would be the most important thing). Spain led Harford to a 14-3 record this season during his time. He led his team with 28 points and 10 rebounds in the championship game against #1 seed Frederick CC. He totaled 69 points and 31 rebounds in three tournament games for Harford.
Enjoy Spain's highlight video from Harford CC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbzUN2MTrOE&sns=tw&noredirect=1
We will keep Battler basketball fans updated on this recruit and any others that come down the line!
