City of Basketball Love

Ari Rosenfeld (@realA_Rosenfeld)
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After seeing his recruitment explode since deciding to spend a prep year at St. Thomas More (Conn.), delaying his arrival at college until the fall of 2016, former George Washington (Pa.) star Charlie Brown has committed to Saint Joseph’s, per a report by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Aaron Carter.

A classic late bloomer, Brown started gaining attention last summer playing on the AAU circuit with Philly Pride. He followed that up by averaging 16.1 points per game during his senior season at Washington, leading the Eagles to the championship game of the Public League Class AAAA playoffs.

However, due to the still-raw state of his game and concerns about his slender frame, Brown found himself without any Division I offers after the season and decided to give himself another year to change that.

Almost as soon as he announced his decision last month to go the prep route and spend another AAU season with Philly Pride, offers started flooding in. Ultimately, Brown chose the Hawks over opportunities to play at Drexel, Hofstra, Robert Morris, Rider, VCU, La Salle, James Madison, and Delaware.

Standing at 6-foot-6, Brown will provide the Hawks some scoring punch from the wing. He has a nice stroke on his outside shot, and is continuing to expand his off-the-dribble game as he gets stronger and more used to better competition than that which he faced in the lower divisions of the Public League.

A prototypical shooting guard at the next level, he also possesses the ability to bring some secondary ball-handling provided there is another point guard on the floor.

Brown is head coach Phil Martelli’s first commitment in the 2016 class. Assuming the Hawks don’t add any more players to their roster for next season, they will have two more scholarships to work with to look to add to the foundation to a strong class that Brown has created.

Brown’s Philly Pride teammate, Friends Central (Pa.) forward DeAndre Hunter, stands as one of Martelli’s top targets in the class.

For the second straight class, St. Joe's has at least one commitment from a Philly Pride player. St. Joseph's Prep star Chris Clover, another Philly Pride product, will be a freshman on campus in the fall, as will Neumann-Goretti's ​Lamar Kimble, giving the Hawks more Philly flavor than they've had in some time.

CoBL will have more on this story shortly.