He may be the best high school basketball player in the state who won’t be playing in the tournament this year.
But Chris Braley and his teammates at Nokomis Regional High School in Newport are working to ensure that’s only a temporary frustration.
“We’re young, we’re a work in progress, but we’re coming,” he said.
And Braley is a big reason why.
The 6-foot-3, 175-pound sophomore guard already is considered one of the top up-and-coming players in Maine regardless of class.
His shooting range borders on limitless — he made seven 3-pointers while scoring 32 points against Mount View of Thorndike on Tuesday.
And he boasts the strength and determination to do the dirty work — in addition to ranking among the state’s scoring leaders at 24 points per game, he also is averaging nearly 12 rebounds an outing.
“And he’s really just learning the game,” said Carl Parker, a longtime coach in the prep and AAU ranks who took over the Nokomis program last summer.
That same statement could be said for all of the Warriors, whose roster includes one senior, three juniors, four sophomores and four freshmen.
After two consecutive winless seasons in Class A, Nokomis is enduring some growing pains during its first year as a Class B team in the rugged Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference, a league that has produced the last nine Eastern Maine Class B champions.
But a 59-50 victory over Belfast on Dec. 15 ended a 51-game losing streak, and recent competitive outings against Mount View and defending Class B state champion Camden Hills of Rockport suggest the youthful Warriors’ basketball baptism under fire is about to pay dividends.
“We 1-14, but they’re out there busting their tails,” said Parker, whose starting lineup includes two sophomores and two freshmen. “We’ve talked long and hard all this year about building a foundation.”
The Warriors’ featured building block is Braley, whose work at Nokomis and with the MBNation AAU program has merited him status as the state’s top-ranked sophomore player by New England Recruiting Report.
“I try not to look too much at that stuff,” said the 15-year-old Braley. “I just try to keep improving.”
Improvement since starting at Nokomis as a freshman has come in conjunction with increased strength, as work in the weight room during the most recent offseason helped enable Braley to add 15 pounds.
That not only has enhanced Braley’s game, but also his self-assuredness on the court.
“That’s helped quite a bit,” he said. “Being stronger helps a lot with confidence.”
Continued improvement will involve working on his defense, his individual quickness and some of the subtleties of the game.
“He’s got to work on the little things,” said Parker, “like getting better at coming off screens, reading the angles of the screener, and getting his hips lower.
“But he’s going to be a heck of a player just because of his inner drive and coachability.”
Braley hopes continued improvement leads to a college basketball opportunity, but for the next two-plus seasons there’s a high school program to continue rebuilding — and a tournament trip to the Bangor Auditorium perhaps on the horizon.
“We’re a young team but we’re getting more mature all the time, even me,” said Braley. “Getting to the tournament next year is absolutely a goal for us.”
