Koby Brea Talks About Dreams Of Playing In Kentucky As The Best Shooter In College
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After a four-year career in Dayton, where he led the nation in three-pointers last season, Washington Heights native Koby Brea is headed south to his dream school, the University of Kentucky.
It all started in those courts on Nagle Ave. In the heart of Washington Heights, a neighborhood north of Harlem, behind the great sacred court of Dyckman Park, there is a small court surrounded by a single black fence. This is where young Koby Brea developed his love for the game. Just a few blocks from his parent’s apartment, Koby would go to the court and meet up with his friends and other local kids to write their teams and play around.
day.
When he was 6, he was combining his kicks, catching his ball and walking down the street with his dad, Stephan, to meet his pop buddies. They would walk from park to park, looking to their heart’s content. “They are still playing to this day. “I don’t know how, but they know,” Koby said. And there was Koby, witnessing that love for the game in real time.
He says: “Being around it, all you can do is watch and enjoy the ride. Whenever they ran in the other direction, I was in the other half trying to shoot, trying to get my ball and be quick before they came back down.
After a few years, he would wake up at 5 am to exercise on these same courts. Is everyone sleeping while working? That was a very good motive.
Dyckman set the standard for who Koby Brea wants to be. In 2024, that would be the best shooter in college basketball and the latest addition to Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats.
Fifteen years after he was first introduced to the concrete courts, Koby is back at Dyckman. It’s a hot mid-August afternoon and the sun doesn’t stop. Never mind, Koby deserves a full Eric Emanuel baby blue tracksuit that matches the “Industrial Blue” Air Jordan 4s on his feet. After watching him learn to play and eventually compete in Dyckman’s summer tournaments, his father, mother and younger brother Tyler now stand on the sidelines as we take pictures. It’s a family affair. For Breas and Washington Heights, it has always been that way.
“Growing up in Washington Heights, it’s like having a really big family around you,” Brea explained. “You are among a crowd of people like you, who come from the same culture, the same background. We have a lot of Dominicans, a lot of Latin people, and whenever you walk down the street, you see someone who looks like you, who looks like you, who talks like you. It just feels like family.”
The endless hours he spent surrounded by his community, on and off the court, set the stage for his commitment to those who flocked to him. As he stands at center court with Tyler running around his legs, he sees his childhood reflected back at him. It’s an eerily familiar feeling, felt a few weeks before we filmed when he first set foot inside the Joe Craft Center in Lexington. For years, Koby saw himself as a perfect fit for Big Blue. Now it’s true.
“You see all the blood, sweat and tears that went into that gym I just entered,” he said of this visit.
When Koby wasn’t focusing on Dyckman, he was watching Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker and the rest of the Wildcats in the mid-2010s. He wished to get the gun up under the weight of the eight banners hanging overhead. That level of prestige was attractive. So he intended it.
Koby remembers the first time his coach at Monsignor Scanlan High School brought him to campus in the Bronx. As they made small talk about the team and school, the coach asked Koby where he wanted to play at the next level.
“I remember being a kid with big dreams and I told him, I want to go to the University of Kentucky,” said Koby. “And he looked at my dad and he was like, He has stool. I don’t know if I can take you to Kentucky, but I’ll make sure I take you somewhere. That just shows that when you have people around you who believe in you, who want to push you as much as possible, you also have confidence in yourself that this is what I want to be and I will do it. do it. It works for you.”
Heading into the 2024-25 season, Koby Brea not only suits up for Kentucky, he is expected to help the program regain national prominence.
But the Washington Heights native didn’t just reach the blue blood of his dreams. He made his way towards the entrance. Coming off of Scanlan as a second team All-New York selection, Koby focused on his career as a Dayton Flyer. He took home the A-10 Sixth Man of the Year in his redshirt freshman season, but suffered from strain in each of his legs the following year that prevented him from taking what he was waiting for.
Instead, he spent the summer getting in shape in his wheelchair. It took all of the offseason and part of the preseason to fully recover. With just two weeks of practice and conditioning under his belt, Koby continued to light almost every net in the nation on fire, leading the Flyers to the second round of March Madness.
In 201 attempts, Koby led the nation in three-pointers, hitting 49.8 percent of his shots from beyond the arc. Sorry, not sure if you got that. Koby Brea hit almost half of his shots from downtown. Throw in 11.1 points and nearly 4 boards a game and the accolades start to flow. A second A-10 Sixth Man of the Year Award was duly awarded and just like that, Koby was on the radar of every superpower in the country. At the end of the day, Kentucky always had the upper hand.
“This year I really wanted to take a step back to take a few steps forward. “I went back to college expecting that all I was going to do this summer was work,” said Brea. “Work as hard as I can, work as hard as I ever have, to make sure I have a great year in a great new place.”
The wait, the work, it was all worth it. He made his stamp on Dyckman. He found himself in Dayton and signed himself onto the college basketball record books. Now he’s shooting in the same gym that Booker did nearly a decade ago, as speculation about the 2025 NBA Draft grows closer to reality. But in the here and now, Koby Brea is letting those years of lessons guide him as he takes each day. He is stronger, healthier and more dangerous than ever with the ball in his hands. And as he turns the chapter in his college epilogue, there’s a goal coming that Koby has longed for since he took that trip to Dyckman with his dad.
“What is expected is to hang the ninth banner. Me, I’m a real competitor, and I’m proud to win. I definitely want to leave my stamp wherever I go. Being at Kentucky, the standard is very high and everyone expects success,” Koby said. “I just want to have the opportunity, every day, to continue to grow and be the best version of myself.”
Photos by Alexander Zhang and UK Athletics.
