Happily rewriting the record book
Podziemski is on the cusp of milestone
Back before the dunks, the records, the scholarship offers, the deep threes and the way-deep threes, Brandin Podziemski had to convince his dad to let him play in a basketball tournament.
Brandin was in eighth grade and his primary sport was baseball. A lefty with an athletic build and long levers, he was excelling as a pitcher for his travel team. He was still relatively new to the community, but Brandin's friends in Muskego talked him into playing for the basketball team at St. Joseph's in Big Bend, the parish the family attended, in the upcoming Padre Serra, a tournament featuring the best 8th grade girls and boys teams throughout the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
With the promise from Brandin that he would keep his grades up, though, John Podziemski eventually relented. He could play for the team at St. Joe's.
“I never knew the magnitude of this tournament until we were actually in it,” John said. “For Catholic people, it's a big deal. You take the
40 best Catholic teams in the state and you play to see who's best. They were pushing hard for him to play and I didn't fully get it.
"He was a baseball player."
The breadth of the quality of play was the topic of conversation one day after practice between John and the team's coach. As Brandin approached, John was making a comment about he wasn't sure how the team, which included future two-time AP state football player of the year Hunter Wohler, would perform.
“Don't worry, coach,” Brandin responded. “We'll win it.”
Brandin turned around and began walking the opposite direction. Something important crossed his mind and he pivoted right back.
“Do they give out an MVP award?” he asked.
His coach nodded.
“Cool,” Brandin replied. “I'll win that, too.”
On the drive home, John started to do the math. Forty teams times roughly 12 players per team comes out to about 480 players in the tournament. There's no way his son, a baseball player who only dabbled in hoops occasionally, was going to win MVP over that many other players.
“You're telling me you're going to be better than 479 other players?” he asked.
Brandin glanced over at his dad, bewildered that he would even question it.
“We laughed and I said, ‘We'll see,'” John said. “And, boy, did I ever see.”
That summer, St. Joe's boys won the championship.
The MVP? Podziemski.
As an eighth grader, Brandin Podziemski was named MVP of the Padre Serra tournament. Podziemski is now one of the top players in the state. COURTESY OF THE PODZIEMSKI FAMILY
From MVP to St. John's
There is a lesson to be learned from Podziemski, now a senior at St. John's Northwestern and the possible 2021 Wisconsin Mr. Basketball, winning MVP honors at the Padre Serra.
“You can't bet against him,” John said. “You'll lose. He has that much fight in him to show you that you'll be wrong.”
Brandin's own family didn't fully grasp that for a couple of years, however. When Brandin told John and his mom, Barbara, following a baseball tournament in Tennessee when he was 14 that he wanted to focus on basketball and play AAU hoops in the summer instead, they figured he would give it a try before realizing it wasn't for him.
What they saw unfold was something entirely different.
“Even as a freshman, I thought he was a top-five player in the entire state,” said DJ Mlachnik, who has worked with Podziemski both as an AAU coach with Wisconsin RAP and as current interim head coach at St. John's. “You saw the kid, how he works day-in, day-out. He was a sponge.”
As a freshman at Muskego High School, though, Podziemski didn't make the varsity team. He wasn't pulled up to junior varsity, either.
“To be honest with you, I'm not sure what they saw or didn't see that they had him playing with the freshman,” Mlachnik said. “The kid I saw that spring and summer was already special.”
Multiple private schools, including St. John's, Catholic Memorial and Pius XI, had reached out to Podziemski about where he was going to high school after the Padre Serra. Seeing the opportunities provided for postsecondary education success at St. John's, as well as a relationship with Mlachnik formed through AAU, they enrolled Brandin at the Delafield-based school beginning his sophomore year in 2018.
Brandin told a St. John's alum that September during Homecoming festivities, while looking up at the school record board, that his name would be up there – stated as if there was no other possible outcome, of course.
Primarily a shooter on a conference champion team that year, he averaged 22.5 points and 9.3 rebounds per game while hitting 44.9% of his three-pointers.
And he set two school records – three-pointers made in a game (9) and in a season (92) – in the process.
On the cusp of history
Forty-two players in state history have scored 2,000 points. None have done so without playing on varsity as a freshman.
That's the milestone Podziemski is chasing down.
At his current mark of 34.9 points per game, Podziemski is on pace to eclipse 2,000 points on Feb. 9 in a game at Lake Mills.
Podziemski hasn't reached his scoring clips by forcing the issue offensively. His field goal percentage (61.8%) is the best of his career. He's averaging only one more shot attempt per game than he did a year ago but his scoring is up from 27.6 ppg. His assists are up from 3.5 a game as a junior to 5.5.
“He's in a spot where he's controlling the game and playing at his highest level,” Mlachnik said. “He takes the game with what they give him.”
Podziemski's greatest strength is his perpetual yearning to master his craft.
At St. John's, he spends his free time in the gym, often alone, until athletic director Mike Fink kicks him out to shut the building down. He watches film relentlessly and, when watching a game live, picks apart the intricacies. When working with coaches, Podziemski seems to have a never-ending stream of questions, like how to attack various defensive looks or the best techniques to use to position his body for offensive rebounds.
“He's always been a very high-IQ player,” Mlachnik said. “Extremely coachable, good feel for the game on both ends.”
A highly-regarded recruit
Slowly but surely.
That's the approach Podziemski has taken to the recruiting process.
There is no shortage of college programs interested in Podziemski, a 4.0 student and the No. 72-ranked player in the country and four-star recruit according to Rivals.
Blue bloods Kansas and Kentucky have offered him a scholarship. Marquette has, as well, along with Arizona State, Illinois, Kansas State, Wake Forest and more.
Podziemski became a fast riser on colleges' radars beginning the AAU season following his sophomore year. He was poised for a breakout junior AAU campaign on Phenom University Team Herro, but ended up losing the chance to showcase himself in the summer due to COVID-19.
Phenom University held a 2020 fall league featuring the best players both in the program and the extended area, during which Podziemski dazzled. Coaches blew up the phone of Antonio Curro, the head of Phenom, with interest in the 6-foot-6 wing.
Kentucky offered on October 14 and Kansas followed the next-day.
“He was definitely extremely excited when it all started popping off, but to say he wasn't expecting it, I don't think that was the case,” Mlachnik said. “He was confident in himself with the work that he put in to get to this point.”
Brandin considered committing before the early signing deadline in December, but ultimately opted to focus on the season and his senior year of high school. The recruiting process hasn't slowed down but a decision isn't imminent.
St. John's sits at 14-3 with a No. 3 ranking in the state, and Podziemski is on the cusp of something no player in Wisconsin has ever done. Still, the Lancers hope the best is yet to come.
In Podziemski's case, it's more like expecting the best is yet to come.