City of Basketball Love

Jeff Griffith (@Jeff_Griffith21)
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This season has been a long time coming for Kamau Brickus and Jhamir Brickus.

Kamau has spent the last three seasons working his way up the ladder to become Coatesville’s go-to guy and central leader in his senior season.

Now Jhamir, his younger cousin, begins the same journey he began three years ago as a freshman in head coach Chuck Moore’s Coatesville program.

Only in his case, Jhamir has been in the starting five from day one, and is playing side-by-side with his cousin for the Red Raiders.

“It’s a good time,” Kamau said. “Sometimes (Jhamir) is a bit hard-headed, we fight sometimes at practice, but when it’s time to play, it’s time to play.”

The two of them embody the united family mentality the the Red Raiders have harped on over the last couple of years in particular, and it showed Thursday night, as they led their team to their first win of the season, 61-42 over Ches-Mont National Division foe Avon Grove.

It was a portion of the third quarter where the Brickus cousins singlehandedly outscored the Red Devils (2-1) by a 17-7 margin that sparked Coatesville to the victory. The Red Raiders (1-2) entered the final period up 45-32 following that stretch, after having started the third up by just three.  

During that run, an impressive transition finish by Kamau off of a pinpoint bounce pass from Jhamir proved how well the two can play together on the court, and therefore how much of an asset they are to Moore’s young team.

“The beauty of it is they can play off of each other,” Moore said. “They love playing with each other. When you grow up with somebody since birth, you understand their strengths and their weaknesses, which is huge for me. With them on the floor, sometimes I don’t even need to call the play.”

“They got out there and they won the game for me,” he added. “They make it a lot easier for me.”

Kamau, the game’s leading scorer with 16 points, is the only senior with solid varsity experience this season for Coatesville, and is therefore the leader on and off the court. According to his head coach, the 6-foot guard has been filling that role from the get-go.

“Everything starts with him,” Moore said. “Being the senior leader, I’m looking to him to provide that spark, that leadership, and just anything that’s need at that moment. One thing I never have to worry about with Kamau is lack of effort. He’ll run through a brick wall for me, and every game that he steps on the floor I know I’ll get that from him.”

“My hope is that young guys will follow his lead,” he added.

Young guys like Jhamir, perhaps?

The younger of the two cousins, Jhamir – who prefers to be called by his nickname, “Jig” – already has three starts under his belt as freshman, the first two of which came in the gymnasiums of the state’s elite, Plymouth-Whitemarsh and Reading, both losses.

Described by Kamau as “phenomenal,” the freshman lived up to the billing, adding 12 points, which included a three-pointer and a pair of acrobatic driving finishes.

Moore hopes to see Jhamir grow up rapidly as a varsity starter in order to maximize his clear potential as quickly as possible.

“He’s special,” Moore said of his young point guard. “You’ve got to be special if you’re starting on varsity as a freshman. He’s had a great three first games, and with that you’ll have some freshman mistakes, and what I’ll have to do with him is always kind of look at the film and correct those mistakes."

In order to speed up that maturation process, Moore is looking to Kamau to use his leadership as a senior and an older family member to work on Jhamir.

“I think it helps me a lot,” Moore said. “When I need to reserve my voice for practice or for certain points of the game, I can rely on Kamau to say something to him, and he’ll respond. Sometimes the response isn’t what I want, because as (cousins) it always leads to fisticuffs, you want to start fighting and scrapping. But I think having him here helps me out a lot."

“I look up to (Kamau) a lot,” Jhamir added. “I follow in his footsteps. He’s a great leader.”

The two Brickus cousins aren’t the only family Moore has on this year’s roster. Jhamir’s half-brother, freshman guard Dapree Bryant, received his first varsity playing time off the bench and scored four points.

And for a team who saw the power of chemistry in winning a league title last season, having blood-related teammates certainly doesn’t hurt the cause.

It clearly made the difference in earning the season’s much-needed first win Thursday night, and should continue to do so as this young Coatesville team looks to grow going forward.

“I’m relieved,” Moore said. “Simply because I know we aren’t really an 0-2 team coming into this game. The first two games they gave me everything they could possibly do. I think they grew up, it’s going to be a learning process every day for us.”

“(Being family) just makes it even greater,” Kamau said. “It’s a stronger bond.”