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Following a four-year profession at Dayton, the place he led the nation in three-point proportion final season, Washington Heights native Koby Brea is heading south to the varsity of his goals, the College of Kentucky.
It began at these courts on Nagle Ave. Within the coronary heart of Washington Heights, a neighborhood north of Harlem, tucked behind the hallowed essential court docket of Dyckman Park, lies a smaller half-court lined with a singular black fence. It’s there {that a} younger Koby Brea fostered his love for the sport. Only a few blocks away from his mother or father’s house, Koby would go to the court docket and meet up along with his associates and different native children to draft their very own groups and hoop all through
the day.
When he was 6, he would lace up his kicks, seize his ball and head down the road along with his dad, Stephan, to fulfill up along with his pop’s associates. They’d journey from park to park, hooping to their hearts’ content material. “They nonetheless play to today. I don’t know the way, however they do,” Koby says. And there was Koby, witnessing that love for the sport in actual time.
“Being round it, all you are able to do is actually watch and benefit from the journey,” he says. “Any time they ran down a technique, I’d be on the opposite half attempting to shoot, attempting to get my ball and be fast earlier than they got here again down.”
A number of years later, he was waking up at 5 a.m. to work out at those self same courts. Everybody sleeping whereas he was working? That was the most effective motivation.
Dyckman set the usual for who Koby Brea wished to be. In 2024, that might be the most effective shooter in school basketball and the newest addition for Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats.
Fifteen years after first being launched to the concrete courts, Koby is again at Dyckman. It’s a piping scorching mid-August afternoon and the solar is unrelenting. Pay it no thoughts, Koby’s suited in a full Eric Emanuel child blue tracksuit with matching “Industrial Blue” Air Jordan 4s on-foot. After watching him be taught to play and ultimately compete in the summertime Dyckman tournaments, his father, mom and youngest brother Tyler now stand off to the facet as we snap pictures. It’s a household affair. For the Breas and Washington Heights, that’s at all times been the case.
“Rising up in Washington Heights, it’s like having a extremely massive household round you,” Brea explains. “You’re simply round a complete bunch of individuals which can be similar to you, that come from the identical tradition, the identical background. We have now numerous Dominicans, numerous Latin folks, and any time you’re strolling down the road, you see any person that’s similar to you, that appears similar to you, talks similar to you. It simply looks like household.”
The infinite hours spent surrounded by his group, on and off the court docket, set the stage for his dedication to those that have poured into him. As he stands at heart court docket with Tyler dribbling round his legs, he sees his personal childhood mirrored again at him. It’s an eerily acquainted feeling, one he skilled only a few weeks previous to our shoot when he first stepped foot contained in the Joe Craft Heart in Lexington. For years, Koby envisioned himself suiting up within the Large Blue. Now it’s a actuality.
“You see all of the blood, sweat and tears that was put into that health club that I simply walked into,” he says of that go to.
When Koby wasn’t dicing it up at Dyckman, he was watching Karl-Anthony Cities, Devin Booker and the remainder of the mid-2010s Wildcats. He longed to get photographs up beneath the load of the eight banners that hung above. That stage of status was charming. So he aimed for it.
Koby remembers the primary time his coach at Monsignor Scanlan Excessive College introduced him to the campus within the Bronx. As they made small discuss in regards to the workforce and the varsity, the coach requested Koby the place he wished to play on the subsequent stage.
“I bear in mind I used to be a child with massive goals and I advised him, I wish to go to the College of Kentucky,” Koby says. “And he checked out my dad and he was like, You’ve received a wild one. I don’t know if I can get you to Kentucky, however I’ll be sure I get you someplace. That simply goes to indicate that when you might have folks round you which can be assured in you, wish to push you probably the most you possibly can, you even have that confidence in your self that that is what I wish to be and that’s how I’m going to make it. It units it off for your self.”
Heading into the 2024-25 season, Koby Brea’s not solely suiting up for Kentucky, he’s anticipated to assist this system seize nationwide prominence as soon as once more.
However the Washington Heights native didn’t simply get to the blue blood of his goals. He grinded his manner towards the chance. Popping out of Scanlan as a second workforce All-New York choice, Koby set his sights on a profession as a Dayton Flyer. He took residence A-10 Sixth Man of the Yr in his redshirt freshman season, however suffered a pair of stress fractures in every of his legs the next yr that prevented him from taking that subsequent leap he was prepared for.
As a substitute, he spent the summer time getting kind capturing in whereas sitting in his wheelchair. It took the whole lot of the offseason and a portion of the preseason to totally get better. With simply two weeks of practices and conditioning underneath his belt, Koby proceeded to mild practically each web within the nation on fireplace, main the Flyers into the second spherical of March Insanity.
On 201 makes an attempt, Koby led the nation in three-point proportion, nailing 49.8 % of his photographs from past the arc. Sorry, unsure if you happen to caught that. Koby Brea hit rattling close to half of his photographs from downtown. Throw in 11.1 factors and practically 4 boards a recreation and the accolades began to circulation. A second A-10 Sixth Man of the Yr honor was appropriately bestowed and similar to that, Koby was immediately on the radar of each main powerhouse within the nation. On the finish of the day, Kentucky at all times had the higher hand.
“This yr I simply actually wished to take the chance to take a step again so I may take a pair steps ahead. I got here again to school with the expectation that every one I used to be going to do that summer time was work,” Brea says. “Work as onerous as I may, work the toughest that I ever had, simply to make sure that I had an awesome yr at an awesome new place.”
The wait, the work, it was all price it. He made his stamp at Dyckman. He discovered himself at Dayton and inscribed himself into the school basketball document books. Now he’s placing up photographs in the identical health club Booker did practically a decade in the past, as visions of the 2025 NBA Draft develop nearer and nearer to actuality. However within the right here and now, Koby Brea is letting these years price of classes information him as he takes it daily. He’s stronger, more healthy and extra deadly than ever with the ball in his palms. And as he turns the chapter to his collegiate epilogue, there’s a looming aim that Koby’s longed for ever since he took these walks to Dyckman along with his dad.
“The expectation is just to hold the ninth banner. Me, I’m a real competitor, and I delight myself on successful. I positively wish to depart my stamp all over the place I’m going. Being at Kentucky, the usual is so excessive and all people expects success,” Koby says. “I simply wish to have the chance, daily, to continue to grow and be the most effective model of myself.”
Portraits by Alexander Zhang and UK Athletics.