Transfer forward impacts South Carolina basketball with ‘master’s in leadership’
Lamont Paris wasn’t being tongue in cheek when he described Hayden Brown, the oldest player on his South Carolina men’s basketball roster, as having “a master’s in leadership.”
Brown, 24, earned the unique degree last year as a graduate student at The Citadel, studying the sciences behind various leadership theories off the court while recording a second consecutive first-team All-SoCon season on it.
Now, in his sixth and final year of college basketball, he’s putting both of those skill sets to use for a South Carolina team that’s less hitting the reset button and more mashing it with a first-year coach leading a roster heavy on transfers and freshmen into the 2022-23 season.
Brown, one of eight scholarship newcomers on the Gamecocks’ roster, describes himself as an extrovert who loves “just getting to know people, understanding why they are the way they are” and a veteran who’s produced at a lower level while holding his own against the highest.
Those assertions held up with coaches and teammates at South Carolina’s men’s basketball media day earlier this month ahead of the team’s Nov. 8 season opener.
Paris called Brown a quasi-extension of his staff who “makes it a little easier for me.” Assistant Tim Buckley described him as a “first-class, top-shelf” person.
Forwards Josh Gray and Tre-Vaughn Minott raved about his strength and maturity, and star freshman GG Jackson, having known Brown for all of three months, didn’t blink in dubbing him “probably one of the best teammates I’ve ever had in my life.”
“He’s definitely my guy,” Jackson said.
Engagement comes easy for Brown, a Greer native who was barely recruited out of Byrnes High School in 2017 but had, by his count, 60 to 70 schools reaching out to him when he entered the transfer portal this spring with one remaining year of college eligibility.
After committing to The Citadel over Presbyterian, the only other college that showed serious interest in him, Brown developed into an excellent stretch forward across five seasons at the Charleston military school, which included a one-year medical redshirt.
He averaged 18.8 points, 10.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game as a junior and a senior, shot 50.1% from the field and 29.3% on 3-pointers for his career and set The Citadel’s program record for career double-doubles (28) at a stout — but not exactly towering — 6-foot-5.
“Yeah, there’s going to be more size and athleticism around at times (in the SEC), but he’s also done it against some high-level guys and players,” assistant coach Tanner Bronson said. “When we take a guy like Hayden, we take him for who he is and what he’s done.”
Despite torching SoCon opponents (including a few of Paris’ old Chattanooga teams) for the better part of two years, Brown said he still fretted a bit over his transition to Power Five basketball during a transfer recruiting process that also saw him visit Georgia Tech and Loyola Chicago before committing to South Carolina in late April.
As highlighted by Bronson, though, Brown’s track record against high-major teams at The Citadel indicates a modest learning curve, if any. He had 22 points in 15 minutes against Virginia Tech as a freshman in his second-ever game, 26 against Georgia as a junior and 19 apiece against No. 5 Duke and Pittsburgh as a senior. All of those games were on the road.
“After I look back and see that, I think: ‘Wow, Hayden, you are more than capable,’ ” Brown said of himself. “That’s the confidence that I need. I’m fully confident in myself, honestly. And with the guys around me, I feel like I have the support that will allow me to do that.”
Brown anticipates rotating most of his minutes at the small forward and power forward positions, stretching the floor and grabbing opportune rebounds for South Carolina. It’s a glue guy role: not too dissimilar from the one Brown’s already taken this preseason as the resident USC vet who’s always down for a cup of coffee or an in-depth conversation or a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting (an avid Christian, he has Ephesians 2:8 tattooed on the inside of his left wrist).
Now, Brown’s trying to turn those good vibes into tangible results for a USC program that’s only qualified for two NCAA tournaments since the turn of the century. It’s his last chance to do so as a college basketball player, and he’s not taking his leadership position lightly.
“I’m going to come in and try to love on the guys in the best way I know how,” he said. “I’m going to try to get to know them the best way I know how. I think real leaders are able to serve and understand in a way that isn’t ‘me, me, me,’ right? It’s very others-centered. So I’ll try to just get a better feel for them and then let my natural ‘who I am’ kind of come across.”
Spoken like a true major.
This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
