Stone, SPU's answer to Larry Bird, carries on a family tradition
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He is called the Larry Bird of Seattle Pacific basketball. And though the legendary Celtic's name and game are impossible for anyone to live up to, it somehow fits.
Brannon Stone, after all, is a selfless 6-foot-9 forward with passes as sharp as his three-point shooting. He's a rarity in college basketball, a talented, fundamentally sound player who puts winning and his team above himself.
He is a dash of 1980s Celtic magic somehow dropped into NCAA Division II, a flash of Bird at Boston Garden somehow transported to Brougham Pavilion.
"That is what it is all about - to do everything possible you can do as a team to come together and win," Stone said.
Stone, from Oak Harbor, is regarded as one of the most complete players in Division II basketball. He is a big man who can score, block shots, yet dribble the ball up the court to break a press if needed. He is the Falcons' second-leading scorer (14.9) and leads the team in assists (3.6), steals (1.8), rebounds (tied, 6.3) and free-throw percentage (83 percent).
Coach Ken Bone says that Stone's unselfish and intelligent style of play makes him a key ingredient if the Falcons hope to duplicate last year's run deep into postseason. No. 22 SPU (21-5) will play Central Washington in the NCAA Division II West Regional today in Bellingham, which continues through Saturday.
What does Stone give SPU?
"Something you can't put into a statistic," said Bone, in his 15th season at Seattle Pacific, 11th as head coach. "He is as good a player as I have ever coached."
Stone has watched and admired Bird for years, and the parallels go beyond their games. Early in his career at Oak Harbor High School, Stone would pop in a "Larry Bird the Legend" video before every home game.
Oak Harbor, a Navy town of 17,000 on Whidbey Island, is larger than Bird's hometown of French Lick, Ind. But both are rural communities with a small-town feel. Stone is as closely connected to SPU as Bird was to the Celtics. His father Jeff and mother Vicky met at SPU in 1970. Jeff played basketball for the Falcons.
His cousin, Jana Holme, starts at forward for the Falcon women's team. Garrett, his younger brother, is a redshirt freshman and the 19th family member to attend SPU.
"I was really compelled to attend a small school like SPU, and the fact that it is a Christian school and close to my family made it the best fit for me," Stone said.
Stone grew up around basketball.
Brannon remembers watching his father's practices since he was in the second grade. By fifth grade, he played pickup games on Sunday with his father and a collection of coaches and players. Brannon was a quick study who set a lot of screens and was told to pass the ball before shooting it, traits that are still with him.
For four years at Oak Harbor High School, Jeff coached Brannon, the first freshman to play varsity. He led the team in scoring his sophomore, junior and senior years. Coaching his son didn't come without conflict. There were those who believed that Brannon was on the team because of who the coach was.
"I probably bent over backwards to prove that wasn't the case," Jeff Stone said.
Father and son tried to leave whatever conflicts they had on the hardwood.
"He yelled quite a bit, but when I look at it now I realize he just wanted me to be the best player I could be," Brannon said.
When Brannon left Oak Harbor for SPU, Jeff was forced to make a difficult decision. Trying to coach and travel to Brannon's games was too much.
"It would get to be Sunday and I wouldn't know what day it was," Jeff said.
The desire to keep coaching still burned inside, but family was more important. Jeff quit after 30 years of coaching to sit in the bleachers at Brougham Pavilion and watch his sons carry on the family legacy at SPU.
At a recent home game, 25 family members sat in the stands and cheered for Jana, then Brannon at an SPU doubleheader.
As Hawaii Pacific cut an 18-point lead to three, Jeff Stone jumped out of the stands and sat on press row. He drummed his fingers on a table and shouted encouragement to his son.
But Brannon was struggling and had the ball stolen twice. Bone pulled him out for a lecture. Stone returned to make the final six minutes of the game his own highlight reel - collecting a three-pointer, two assists, two rebounds, a blocked shot and a steal to help SPU win.
Rewind it, and it looks just a little like something out of Stone's well-worn Larry Bird video. Squint, and you can almost see Bird and the Celtics in short pants. A game that is honed in small towns like French Lick, or Oak Harbor, but getting rarer in the NBA or big-time college basketball.
"I don't watch the NBA very much," Brannon Stone said. "It seems like the isolation and one-on-one game is more important to the young players than the team-oriented concepts."
For that, he only needs to hit rewind on the video in his VCR. SPU fans, spoiled by live showings of their own 6-9 forward, don't even need the video.