Braun-Duin fuels Handley's triumph against James Wood

WINCHESTER — You wouldn’t think that the area’s leading scorer would be disappointed with how he was shooting the basketball, but that’s exactly what Handley’s Will Braun-Duin was thinking heading into the Christmas break.

Braun-Duin, whose bread-and-butter is drilling long-range 3-pointers, was making 33 percent of his attempts while averaging 23.1 points per game. That percentage wasn’t nearly good enough for him, so he hoisted up plenty of shots over the holidays.

The hard work paid off in the Judges’ first game back after the break. Braun-Duin nailed 9 of 13 long-range attempts on the way to a 32-point effort to lead Handley to a 72-45 Class 4 Northwestern District victory against James Wood on Wednesday at Maddex-Omps Gymnasium. Amari Brown added 11 points and Jaevon Brisco notched 10 points for the Judges (7-2, 3-1 district), who made 14 3-pointers against the scrappy Colonels (3-9, 0-4).

Braun-Duin said his goal from long distance is to shoot better than 40 percent, so the start to the season wasn’t acceptable for the freshman. “I’ve been shooting (33) percent from three for the first eight games of the season and anybody who knows me knows that’s not good enough for me,” Braun-Duin said. “Over the break, I took Christmas off and that was it. Every day I was in the gym shooting 500 shots a day.”

Braun-Duin said he did a lot of work with his father Aaron to iron out a few things that weren’t working.

“To be a 40-plus percent 3-point shooter, you have to do everything right every single time,” Braun-Duin explained. “If you get a little bit lazy, it will turn into 30 percent. I just had gotten lazy with a few mechanical things and luckily my dad who is an even better shooter than I am was there to help me out. He told me what I was doing wrong and we fixed it.”

Braun-Duin said that when he returned to practice that he told Handley coach Zach Harrell-Zook that he had fixed his shot.

“That’s Will,” Harrell-Zook said. “Will is a perfectionist. He is never satisfied with anything that he’s done — not to the point where it is negative all of the time. He’s pursuing greatness. He never thinks that he’s at his best and he’s always going to continue to work.”

It didn’t take long to see if that work made a difference.

Braun-Duin sank a 3-pointer on the Judges’ first possession and made his first four shots from well behind the arc as the Judges took a 17-10 lead.

“I was expecting to come out and hit a lot of shots,” Braun-Duin said. “What I wasn’t expecting was to get them so open. I usually have to take tough ones. Jaevon driving and kicking, Kyren [Oglesby] kicking from the post, Amari driving and kicking, they were open ones. Really, it was my teammates helping me out. All I had to do was shoot the shot. They did the hard part.”

Buoyed by play from Harry Nichols and Brandon Waters, the Colonels hung around and were within 17-14 before Quincy Dinges and Brisco sank back-to-back 3-pointers to give Handley a 23-14 lead after one quarter.

The Colonels would never get closer than six points (26-20) from there. Braun-Duin nailed three more 3-pointers in the second quarter and notched 21 points as the Judges led 37-26 at the half.

“You let him eat and then it opens up for everybody,” Brown said of Braun-Duin. “They collapse, so all you have to do is kick. When he gets hot, just get out of his way.”

“He’s a great shooter,” James Wood coach Tim Wygant said of Braun-Duin. “I was preaching to the kids in there that an open shot for one player is not necessarily an open shot for somebody else. … He’s got a very small window to get a shot off and he was hitting them tonight. He was hitting some contested ones and hitting some we should have contested better as well.”

Braun-Duin scored just two points in the third quarter, but that was when his teammates came alive. Brown and Brisco each scored seven points as the Judges extended their lead to 57-37.

“When one hits, it rubs off on everybody else,” Brown said. “I think that’s what happened tonight.”

Harrell-Zook said the Judges have made some changes to their offense since suffering a 72-55 loss against Millbrook before the break.

“After the Millbrook game, we came in and completely changed everything offensively,” he said. “We’re more movement-based now off of the pass and off of the dribble. We felt after the Millbrook game that was so badly needed for us.

“The original thought process at the beginning of the year was that we have a lot of guys who can get to the rim and a lot of guys who can shoot, so let’s run a drive-and-kick offense. There was a lot of driving, but no kicking. We had to change some things and we’re 2-0 since we put it in. We have to continue to build on that.”

Braun-Duin would score the first nine points as Handley scored the first 15 points of the final period.

Brisco (6) and Brown (4) combined for 10 assists for Handley. Jaishaun Offutt and Brendan Campbell grabbed six rebounds each.

Waters led the Colonels with 12 points.

“To James Wood’s credit, I thought they shot lights out in the first half,” Harrell-Zook said. “They made a lot of tough shots. I thought in the second half we dictated the pressure and the pace.”

“Our kids competed,” Wygant said. “They worked really hard, played a physical game and matched Handley’s intensity. Honestly, Handley shot really well from the outside tonight.”

James Wood was buoyed by the return of post Ashton Kees, who has missed multiple recent games. Kees, playing with a taped up left wrist, had six points in limited minutes.

The Colonels will next host Sherando at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

The Judges are scheduled to face Radford at 4:30 p.m. at Floyd County High School in an invitational tournament on Friday. Handley’s Saturday game against Bishop McGuinnes Catholic has been postponed with snow in the forecast.

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