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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

John Blanchette: Winning Hoopfest just one of many talents for this former Eagle

The annual confluence of Hoopfest and the NBA Draft in the same week suggests an obvious marketing bonanza for the 3-on-3 carnival that has Spokane sweating up the streets.

That’s right. The Hoopfest Draft.

OK, maybe not. With 6,000-plus teams, you’d have to start selections the Monday after this Hoopfest to be done in time for the start of the next one. Besides, just as in the NBA – Steph Curry a seventh pick? Isaiah Thomas 60th? – the misses are bound to outnumber the hits.

Need an example? Try Matt Brunell.

Look, at 6-foot-8, it’s not as if he’s the guy who gets left unpicked when they’re choosing up sides on the playground. But as curbside GMs playing Fantasy Hoopfest always fall in love with the foursomes that include that Pac-12 hotshot or this former Zag, a scouting report on Brunell based on his numbers in three years at Eastern Washington University isn’t going to elicit the breathless raves due anyone’s first choice.

And yet posing with his teammates and wearing a winner’s smile under that white headband after last year’s Hoopfest? That’s right, Matt Brunell.

“I’m the flower that blooms right before winter,” joked the 29-year-old Gonzaga law student. “‘Oh, look how beautiful it is. Wait, now it’s dead.’”

It’s tempting to say the best part of Matt Brunell’s game is a playfully arid sense of humor, but enough with the underselling.

This is part of Hoopfest’s funny justice. Sure, it’s fine to see the players from Gonzaga or Northwestern or UNLV clean up at center court, but the event’s everyman vibe seems better served when a team like Brunell’s Spokane Club entry prevails. His teammates – Curtis Carlson, Bryan Rabas and Garrett Strocsher – are all a few years to a decade removed from their playing days at Washington junior colleges, NAIA or Division II schools. Only Brunell played Division I ball, after a year at Big Bend – and after another big guy backed out of Eastern’s offer.

He had the hometown thing going for him, being a Cheney High School grad, and plenty of want-to – and a role. That’s not always shorthand for “forget about scoring,” but he did, mostly – just 221 points in 84 games.

And yet since then, Brunell has played professionally on and off – this past winter in Spain, taking a year off from law school “for my mid-life crisis, or whatever you want to call it,” he said, to play for the Adelpa club in Plasencia.

“What? You’ve never heard of it?” he said. “Well, it’s not quite Real Madrid.”

This has been Brunell’s pattern. His first international gig, in Honduras, came two years out of EWU. He came home and worked for a couple of years before he got the itch again and took off for Iceland. Then it was back to start law school.

“I’m here for two years and then I freak out and leave,” he said. “I wish I knew why. But you can only play for so many years – I’m already having trouble jumping over a phone book. And I was working for an attorney in town and he was telling me the same thing: you can practice law the rest of your life, but you can only play when you’re young.”

In Iceland, he played in a town about half the size of Cheney, averaged 20 points a game and grappled with an alphabet full of slashes and dots, succeeding enough to say hello and order a hot dog.

“I sound like an idiot when I talk in a different language,” he said. “I want to tell people, ‘I swear I’m smart in English – I’m in law school!’”

In Spain, he was still “that tall guy you can’t talk to very well” but found his popularity blowing up with Facebook and Instagram adds to the point he changed his profile to “Mat Brewnell.”

“It sounds like a guy who’s not a celebrity trying to be a celebrity,” he admitted. “Not a big deal. I wanted to stay incognito, but they still found me.”

Brunell isn’t the first player who found his rhythm in the game after college. In his case, a lot of credit goes to Shantay Legans, recently promoted to head coach at Eastern, who led him through workouts and steered him to tryout camps and “just got more comfortable with the game.” As for his Hoopfest prep, well, that’s unusual, too. Last year, he ran a half-marathon two weeks beforehand.

“The year before I did a full marathon and my body was dead,” he said. “I figured I’d better save myself.”

Not much chance of that this weekend. He’s playing on one team, coaching another – and on Friday gets a take-home final in criminal procedure that’s due Monday.

“I’ll be freaking out Sunday night,” he predicted. “I’ll be sweating more than I did on Saturday and Sunday afternoon.”

But like the man said – he can practice law for the rest of his life.