It’s Not a Longshot When Brekke Tries It

For those who want to see fans shaking their heads in astonishment, go watch Ben Brekke of Pasadena La Salle play basketball.

“Your eyes will bulge out when you see where he shoots from,” his coach, Steve Goldstein, said.

As soon as Brekke dribbles past half court, he’s a threat to shoot.

Honest.

“If I pass half court and no one is guarding me, I’ll shoot every time,” he said. “I can make it. I practice from there.”

In pregame warmups, Goldstein has ordered Brekke to stop shooting from well beyond the top of the key “because we don’t want the other teams to see where he pulls up from.”

There’s no spot inside the half-court line from which Brekke doesn’t have permission to shoot.

“He’s got the ultimate green light,” Goldstein said.

Brekke, a 5-foot-11 senior guard, has made 68 three-point baskets and is averaging 19.5 points while shooting 39% from beyond the arc. Last season, he made 74 three-pointers.

Against Los Angeles Verbum Dei two weeks ago, he made all five of his three-point attempts in the first quarter en route to a 31-point performance.

“I blacked out after the third one,” Verbum Dei Coach Rudy Washington said. “This kid is a phenomenal shooter. He strokes it.”

Washington coached in the college ranks for 30 years and doesn’t understand why Brekke isn’t one of the most sought-after prospects in the Southland.

“This kid needs to be recruited,” he said. “He’s one of the premier shooters in Southern California. I don’t understand why USC, Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine aren’t knocking down his door. He’ll come down on the break and pull up from 23 feet. There’s no defense for that.”

Brekke sat out his sophomore season because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. That gave him more time to practice on the lighted basketball court in his backyard in Altadena.

He spends so much time shooting jump shots in his backyard that neighbors had to impose their own curfew.

“The neighbors had a baby and told me to stop shooting so late,” Brekke said. “I shot until midnight. They’d scream out the window, ‘Ben, could you please turn off the light?’ ”

Turning off the lights or chasing Brekke out of a gym might be the only way to keep him from bombing away.

“Whenever I’m open at the three-point line, I shouldn’t miss,” he said.

“I get mad when I miss any shot when I’m open.”

Classmates have shouted for him to shoot from the half-court line during games. He once made a desperation shot from nearly 70 feet against La Canada.

His favorite shot is pulling up at the top of the key near a red volleyball line on the La Salle court, about 27 feet from the basket.

“My coach sometimes says, ‘If you’re shooting from there, why don’t you move up three steps?’ ” he said. “I say, ‘Coach, I can make it.’ ”

Brekke still considers layups easier than three-point shots, but he insists an open three-point shot from 19 feet 9 inches is easier than a free throw.

And beating Brekke in a game of

H-O-R-S-E is unlikely because his strategy is simply to move back farther with each shot.

“When I was 12, my uncle beat me and he brags about it all the time,” Brekke said.

Brekke credits his father, John, a professor of social work at USC, for helping him in basketball. John is constantly working with him on his shooting form.

“I don’t want to hear my dad say, ‘Put your elbow in,’ because it gets annoying,” he said.

Brekke doesn’t qualify as a gunner because he doesn’t fire up shots wildly or in great numbers.

“Last year, we had to beg him to shoot,” Goldstein said. “This year, we put in a lot more sets to make him shoot.”

La Salle is 18-3 overall and 5-0 in the Santa Fe League. The Lancers could challenge Gardena Serra and North Hollywood Campbell Hall for the Southern Section Division V-AA championship.

So far, only an NAIA school from Ohio has expressed serious interest in offering Brekke a scholarship.

But because the three-point shot has become such an important part of college basketball, a player with Brekke’s range would seem much in demand.

Whatever happens, Goldstein continues to enjoy the inevitable moment during a game when the player assigned to guard Brekke becomes frustrated.

“The coach is saying, ‘Pick him up, pick him up,’ ” Goldstein said. “He’s got him from 25 feet, and he makes the shot. The kid turns to the bench, ‘What do you want me to do now?’ ”

Eric Sondheimer can be reached at [email protected].