Illinois High School Basketball

Brianna Wooldridge Transfers From LWW Back to Fremd

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Jakub Rudnik Leave a comment

One of the state’s top 2022 bigs is on the move again.

Brianna Wooldridge, who played at Lincoln-Way West as a sophomore, has transferred to Fremd — the school where she played as a freshman.

@Southsuburbanhoops broke the news on Twitter on Wednesday, September 2. Tony Baranek at the Daily Southtown reports that Wooldridge’s Lincoln-Way West teammates knew of the move earlier.

6’2 F/C Brianna Wooldridge 22’ is no longer enrolled at Lincoln Way West.

This will leave a humongous hole in the middle as Bri was a foundational piece for the 2020 State Runnerup Warriors.

She will be missed.
We love us some Bri 💯

Continued Blessings pic.twitter.com/cASElCDYWy
— Southsuburbanhoops (@ssuburbanhoops) September 2, 2020

Wooldridge said in a message that the move back to Fremd was prompted by family reasons. She said that leaving Lincoln-Way West is bittersweet.

UMass Gets “Blue Collar” Center in DePaul College Prep’s Brian Mathews

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Jakub Rudnik Leave a comment

UMass commit Brian Mathews from DePaul College Prep

Six years ago, Brian Mathews didn’t even play basketball: He was a soccer goalkeeper. Fast-forward to late August and Mathews committed to play Division 1 basketball at UMass.

How exactly did he go from hoops newbie to college player so quickly?

Welcome to the family💪🏾
— Marcus Camby (@MarcusCamby23) August 23, 2020

Like many other athletes thrust into basketball at that age, Mathews, a Chicago resident, was blessed with height that naturally attracts them to the game (or often brings people in the game to them). Mathews was 6-5 when he entered high school and had a size 15 shoe in seventh grade. Still, he was an expectedly raw prospect.

“He was big and long — imagine a puppy dog,” Tom Kleinschmidt, Mathews’ high school head coach at DePaul College Prep, said in a phone interview. “He was all over the place. His body was so big, he couldn’t control it at 12 years old [when I first met him].”

Still, being tall doesn’t guarantee that someone plays in college. Mathews had something many other young bigs lack.

“What stuck out to me was how hard he played,” Kleinschmidt said. “To get a kid that size to play that hard that early, it’s a great piece of clay [to mold].”