Growing Versatility

By Glenn Nelson
HoopGurlz Publisher
Posted Tue, 08/21/2007 - 11:11 Tennessee's recruiting enslaught continues with a player who is finding her way around the paint while retaining perimeter firepower.

---

STORY & PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON
By her own admission, even at a long, lean 6 feet 3, Alyssia Brewer has been a bit confused about playing in the post.

Until the 8th grade, after she'd experienced a huge growth spurt, the Sapulpa, Okla., lefty always had played guard. And, until she began getting instruction from her club-team coach last summer, Brewer approached the post the way a guard might.

"I just brought my skills as a guard to play post," Brewer said on Tuesday after making a verbal commitment to Tennessee. "I didn't really know about doing things with my back to the basket, so I found ways to face up and manuever around people. Sometimes I'd think, 'What am I doing? I can't play this.' I was tall, but I was so skinny, even skinnier than I am now. Last year I wasn't physical at all. Sometimes I even tried to (avoid) contact."

So Brewer literally has grown into the kind of player she is. The question has been: What is that? During the USA Basketball Youth Development Festival in June she was impressively physical around the glass. Until then, she was pegged by some as "soft," though a talented "soft" - a 6-3 player who could sling three-pointers and put the ball on the floor.

If that all sounds familiar, this is the second straight year in which Tennessee coach Pat Summitt has landed a player with size but without categorization. Last year it was Vicki Baugh of Sacramento, Calif., a 6-5, er, wing, forward, guard - player. This year, it's Brewer, ranked No. 20 overall in a deep and talented 2008 class by HoopGurlz.com.

"I can play any position besides point guard," Brewer said. "I'm not very good at that. If they are going to play me at post, I definitely have to get bigger. I'm not big enough to play post in college. Those are some big girls at that position. I can see myself playing the four (forward). I'll get better close to the basket and I can play away from the basket."

With the kind of team Summitt is assembling, versatility will be at a premium. Brewer is the fourth commitment by a player ranked in HoopGurlz's top 20 for 2008. The others are Amber Gray, a 6-1 swing player who can score inside and out and is ranked fourth overall; Shekinna Stricklen, another swing player at 6-2 who is ranked ninth, and Alicia Manning, a 6-1 swing player who is strong and explosive, and ranked 11th.

All of them will come a year after Tennessee's extraordinary 2007 class, ranked No. 1 in the country. In addition to Baugh, it includes Angie Bjorklund, the No. 1 guard in the class; 6-6 Kelly Cain, the No. 2 center, and Sydney Smallbone, a sharp-shooter from Indiana ranked 38th overall.

Brewer was undaunted by the massing talent, choosing Tennessee over Oklahoma and USC. She'd made several trips to nearly UO and went to USC last year. Tennessee entered the picture when Sapulpa High coach Darlean Calip took her team down to Knoxville over Christmas break because she wanted them to see Summitt's style of play.

"Obviously, everyone who is going to Tennessee is going to be there for a reason," Brewer said. "I think it's all going to work out well. Everybody will work around what everyone else can do, and we'll all be able to do what we can. Everyone in the class this year is what you'd call versatile."

The optimistic view would be that Brewer, a player with talent that needs to be channeled, will have the room and time at Tennessee to blossom. She admits that it sometimes has been difficult to push herself amidst a dearth of competition in her homestate of Oklahoma. She got excellent instruction and competition at USA Basketball, then the national Nike Skills Academy to start the summer, but her club team, the California Storm, played in New York, Chicago and Hawaii before reaching Nike Nationals, where Brewer says she was "completely drained" and admits she underperformed.

Despite her late start on a career path inside the paint, Brewer does have athletic genes coursing through her veins. One cousin, Carrick DeHart, played for the Boston Celtics. Another, Aaron Brewer, plays football at Northwestern. And she is motivated to expand her game and play beyond the college level. A major reason for choosing Tennessee is Brewer's belief that Summitt will push her to new levels.

Plus, the inside stuff - it's starting to grow on Alyssia Brewer.

"I feel like I'm starting to find my way," she said.

---

Discuss This on Our Message Board:

Click Here

---

Glenn Nelson is the publisher of HoopGurlz.com. He also founded and coached the Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girl's basketball teams. Glenn previously was the editor-in-chief at Scout.com and a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle Times. His work also has appeared in several books and national magazines. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). For more on Glenn's World, click here. He can be reached at glenn@hoopgurlz.com.

---

Related Players

Alyssia Brewer

Related Schools

Tennessee