2022-2023 Basketball Preview With Coach Brown

SEATTLE- The O’Dea Fighting Irish 2022-2023 basketball season is approaching quickly with the first game being versus the Timberline Blazers on November 29th at 7:15 pm. This will be the only home game for two weeks as the Irish take on the Rainier Beach Vikings, the West Seattle Wildcats, and the Roosevelt Roughriders all on the road.

The Irish have many coaches at the varsity level. Besides head coach Jason Kerr and assistant coach Ryland Brown, there’s assistant coach Brady Sharpe, assistant coach Lee Adams, and assistant coach Steve Truong. Coach Brown is one of the few who work in the building of O’Dea High School, Coach Brown also won a state championship as a player for the Irish in 1997. I spoke with Coach Brown about what he thinks his strengths and weaknesses are as a coach,

Brown said, “I understand the game and can relate to the players well, something I need to work on is being able to articulate my thoughts towards the players and not getting frustrated.”

Being a former player for the Irish, Coach Brown is someone who can relate to the players no matter what the situation is, whether it’s in practice, working on a play or in the 4th quarter of a playoff game with the season on the line, Coach Brown has been there and done that. He’s been around teams who have won the state championship, especially with the recent one in the 2018-2019 season with Magic rookie and the #1 overall pick in the 2022 NBA draft Paolo Banchero.

From December 27-30 the Irish are traveling down to San Diego and Coach Brown gave me a quick insight on what that event will be and mean for the Irish,

Brown said, “The Torrey Pines Classic is a tournament in San Diego that invites a bunch of schools from around the country specifically the West Coast. It gives us a great chance to see some high-level competition and see where we stack up.”

The Irish certainly seem as if they’re going to be prepared for some of the great competition they will face this year in the Metro League like the 2021-2022 state finalist Rainier Beach Vikings or the 2019-2020 state champion Garfield Bulldogs. The Metro League is always considered one of, if not the best, leagues in the state every year. However, Coach Brown does not view either of those teams as big competition when I asked him who would be the biggest competition for the Irish this year in the Metro League,

Brown said, “We are our own biggest competition and if we just get better as a group we will be just fine.”

Clearly Coach Brown is confident with the group the Irish have going into this season with expectations to be a high-ranked Metro League team, to make the WIAA state tournament, and win the Hardwood Classic like they did 4 years ago. I wish the best of luck to Coach Brown, the rest of the Irish coaching staff, and to the team as they start their quest to the 7th state championship in O’Dea basketball history.