Former 7th-grade phenom Braxton Beverly stuns Kentucky town with transfer

Video: Braxton Beverly high school basketball highlights
Kentucky high school basketball star will transfer to Virginia school.

Famously a member of the Perry County Central (Hazard, Ky.) varsity basketball team since the seventh grade, Braxton Beverly was expected to contend for Mr. Basketball honors and potentially a state championship as a senior.

But to the disappointment of some in tiny Hazard (population 5,432 according to Wikipedia), the 5-foot-11 guard has elected to spend the 2015-16 season with the post-graduate program at Hargrave Military Academy (Chatham, Va.).

"It kind of blew up around here today," Perry County Central head coach Shannon Hoskins said of the news Monday. "People are pretty shocked and some are upset. It's definitely a blow."

A bit of a local legend, Beverly garnered national attention as a seventh-grader by leading the Commodores to Kentucky's historic single class state tournament. He scored 23 points in his Sweet 16 debut at Rupp Arena.

"The points, assists and stats, that’s not important to me," Beverly said. "Some of that shows what I did, but figuring out how to better myself and putting myself in a position to be successful is what’s important."

247Sports regards Beverly as a Top 250 national prospect in the 2016 class and the third-best from the state of Kentucky. He has scored 2,558 points in his Perry County Central career and would have likely become the school's all-time leading scorer in the first game of his senior season.

"We might have been 15 to 20 points better than anybody else in our region next year with him," Hoskins said.

As a junior during the 2014-15 season, Beverly averaged 24.6 points per game. He's shown this spring on the Nike EYBL circuit that he's not just a small town sensation, averaging 12.5 points and 2.9 assists per game for the Kentucky Travelers.

Hoskins said Beverly informed him that he was considering a transfer several weeks ago and reached out Sunday night to confirm that he was moving on.

"Leaving my team and the opportunity to make it to Rupp, that was the hard part of the decision," Beverly said. "I’m real close with all my teammates and they are behind me. I’m going to miss them."

According to a source close to Beverly, the decision is about increased competition and not related to academics (he reportedly owns a 3.9 grade point average).

The post-graduate team at Hargrave is a pipeline to the Division I college level. P.J. Hairston, Montrezl Harrell, Josh Howard, Vernon Macklin, Marreese Speights and David West are just a few of the program's success stories.