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Twin Towers: Brown and Emory fuel Blue Ridge

Last season, Blue Ridge’s boys basketball team boasted one of the best senior backcourts in the state, if not the country, home to UC-Riverside’s Kobe Jerome and George Mason’s Michael Gray with a splash of Radford’s Derrick Jones thrown in for good measure.

 

This year? The Barons have a similarly potent senior-laden position group, but it’s in the frontcourt. That’s where versatile seniors Maliq Brown and Houston Emory, ranked among the top 50 power forwards in the country by ESPN, return and are ready to try and complete a four-year run as state champions together.

 

Both of us have been around the program,” Emory said. “We really know what we’re doing and bringing that in with a bunch of new guards is just going to be huge. When we get the ball we’re able to find the open player because we do a really good job of that.”

 

Brown and Emory are both modern big men, with Brown, a 6-foot-9 Syracuse signee and Emory, a 6-foot-10 power forward with multiple Division I offers, capable of knocking down 3-pointers as both have improved their perimeter game since arriving in St. George three years ago. But as Emory pointed out, when it comes to offense, it’s both players’ ability to pass and find the open player that separates them. 

 

“It’s so much easier on us because on offense we know we have them, we can give them the ball and they can go to work,” said Blue Ridge senior guard Devin Walker. “But they can pass too, so we give them the ball through the offense and I think we’ll be good because we have a lot of shooters and (Brown and Emory) pass really well.”

 

Spacing and positioning also plays a big role. The Barons’ basketball program operates like a collegiate program and that requires big men to move throughout the offense, expanding skill sets and playing more positionless basketball. Having three years of chemistry to lean on in that high-level, high-demand system is a huge asset. 

 

“Since we’ve been playing together the last four years, we know which side of the court we want to catch the ball, we know our strengths and weaknesses together,” Brown said. “Being able to know each other and know our abilities on the court helps us play better and develop our game more.”

 

It helps too that while a lot of the guards are new, Walker returns, giving the Barons an experienced, steady hand that’s already off to a fast start as the senior point guard posted 14 assists in the Barons’ first two games. 

 

“He kept working and kept developing his game — it’s good to see his time has come,” Brown said.

 

Throw in developing returners like Levi Pigues, Shannon Shimango and Macon Emory as well as talented newcomers Robby Matos, Diarmid Stewart and Cameron Brewer and the potential for the Blue Ridge offense is quite clear. 

 

Defensively, Brown and Emory are just monsters and that’s a necessity at Blue Ridge where the Barons play a version of UVa’s packline defense and demand defensive intensity from the jump. They’re both capable of guarding most anyone, and their length and quickness makes life tough on opponents. It doesn’t hurt either that after four years of practicing and playing together, they have a sixth-sense for where the other is on the court. 

 

“Defensively, they anticipate when they’ll need to help each other, when to stay at home on their man and when the other guy will help up against opposing guards, leaving the rim unprotected,” said Blue Ridge coach Cade Lemcke. “They have learned what makes each other tick.  Their chemistry on both ends of the floor is incredible.”

 

They’re both off and running this year through two games, with Brown having flirted with a quadruple double against Roanoke Catholic with eight blocks, six assists and nine rebounds to go with 14 points while Emory blocked three shots in that game. 

 

Four years in St. George have transformed both seniors into highly regarded recruits. They’ll head their separate ways at the end of this school year, both likely to continue a long line of Blue Ridge big men who’ve made impacts recently at Division I college programs like Mamadi Diakite, Aamir Simms, Sasha Glushkov and Jaden Frazier. 

 

But right now, they get one more shot together to try and do something that is extremely tough to do — leave with four-straight state basketball titles. 

 

Having one post player as versatile and skilled (as Maliq and Houston) would be a coach’s dream,” Lemcke said. “Having two with these gifts and having the experience these guys have…well, I just hope I don’t mess it up.”

 

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