City of Basketball Love

By Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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MALVERN — Houston native Brody Robinson was supposed to attend the Phelps School in 2022-23. He never made it there, getting an offer to play at Chattanooga the summer before he arrived on campus.

However, Robinson sent the Lions a replacement a year later.

When his close friend and workout partner Jacob Hudson was looking for a postgrad year this summer, Robinson pointed Hudson to Malvern.

The arrival of the 6-foot-3 point guard has been beneficial to both parties. Hudson helped Phelps to the PAISAA semifinals with 16 first-half points in Tuesday’s 70-51 win over Hill School. He’s also improved his game and his college prospects like he envisioned.

“It’s gone better than I expected,” Hudson said after Tuesday’s win.

“College-wise and recruitment wise has gone my way. I came here and I did what I did, and I got what I wanted. Everything’s going good.”

Hudson played his first three high school seasons in Houston at Concordia Lutheran. He spent his senior year at iSchool Lewisville, a charter school near Dallas that plays a national school. It was similar to a boarding school as he stayed away from home.

When he arrived at Phelps, Hudson felt comfortable with the college campus-like lifestyle. He wasn’t used to the cold, but it hasn’t bothered him as he’s yet to wear a winter jacket — teammates even saw him come back from a workout in shorts while it was snowing.

“I’ve been here since September, so I kind of got used to it, but other than that it really wasn’t cold,” said Hudson, who enjoyed seeing a few major snowfalls for the first time in his life.

Hudson can fill it up and has popped off for some big scoring totals this season. He can also play distributor. Teammate Jordan Rogers called him “Point God” on Tuesday. He played with Top 100 recruit Gehrig Normand (Michigan State) on his 3D Empire AAU team and has enjoyed sharing the floor with the likes of junior high-major prospects Will Riley (17 points) and Onyx Nnani (15 points) this season.

The lefty’s biggest knock as a prospect heading into this season was his shooting. Hudson said his shot was fine, it was the consistency that was a problem. It’s an area he focused on improving as he’s spent his time at Phelps getting up shots. 

He's improved from a sub-30 percent 3-point shooter to someone shooting 43 percent from deep this season. He knocked down one of his team’s six 3-point shots against Hill. 

“He’s physically very impressive, I think he’s got a developing floor game, I think he does a great job of knowing when to attack, knowing when to pass it,” Phelps School. coach Trey Morin said. “(His jump shot) opened his game up where he can kind of open put it in sixth gear and really try to hit it.”

“He really, really improved this year, which is not typical of postgrads,” Morin added. “But he works really hard. He’s in the gym everyday, in the weight room, kind of about his business.”

Hudson felt his status as a prospect elevate at the Dec. 27-30 Jordan Brand Classic in New York. Phelps took down Our Savior Lutheran’s Overtime Elite team as part of an impressive overall weekend from Hudson and his teammates that caught coaches’ eyes.

He received a Division I offer from Iona on Jan. 13. It was a validation for the three-a-day workouts he put in with Robinson all summer and the hard work he continued at Phelps.

“It was a big accomplishment to me,” Hudson said. “I’ve always worked. I’ve always worked hard, and I got what I wanted. Just keep working and everything pays off.”

Lafayette assistant Sean O’Brien was there for Tuesday’s game. Drexel and Fairfield are both recruiting him hard too, and Hudson mentioned Sanford as another Division I program reaching out. West Chester head coach Damien Blair and multiple members of his staff were in attendance Tuesday as well. Other Division II programs like Jefferson are also recruiting him.

Hudson has at least one more game to showcase himself before his high school career ends at home Friday against Academy New Church in the PAISAA semifinals. He hopes there are more, trying to help the Lions capture a PAISAA title and a potential invite to the national prep school championship that might come with it.

“Postgrads can sometimes come in and look at it very transactional,” Morin said. “It’s very much we’re here for this, and you’re using me for that. He hasn’t done that. I think he’s really brought into what we’re trying to do.”