Amaya Brown brings big recruiting interest at Cibola

Amaya Brown is an outstanding offensive basketball player. But defense is what really sets her apart, making her the No. 1 player in New Mexico and one of the top five sophomores in the nation.

The 5-foot-10 guard from Cibola (Albuquerque) draws special praise from Robert Sanchez, who coaches her in the off-season on the New Mexico Heat Elite Girls Basketball Club.

He told MaxPreps, "She's as good defensively right now as most players in college at the guard position. She's just deadly. She has long arms (6-foot-1 wing span) and you just can't get by her. She's so deceptive and has extraordinary quick hands. With her length and quickness she's lethal. She's an assassin."

Sanchez has two favorite memories of what his young star has done against superior AAU competition.

An an eighth-grader - always playing against older girls - Brown twice stole the ball from an Alabama player who was ranked No. 7 in the country. The next time she quickly passed to a teammate before Brown could pick her up.

On another occasion Brown blocked a shot by current Stanford freshman Alexa Romano, who has a 34-inch vertical jump. "That's when I knew the torch had been passed," Sanchez noted.

Offensively, Sanchez says, "She has great body control, gets in the lane and you're done."

Brown has great basketball bloodlines on both sides of the family. Her father, Greg Brown, won the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award as the best player in the nation under 6 feet tall in 1994 at the University of New Mexico. Her mother, Catina Dunn, played at famed Hobbs High School.

She started playing basketball at age 5, but admitted,  "I wasn't really that good at first. My dad put me through drills. I always played up throughout my whole career - at least two years. I rode the bench. In sixth grade my dad was the coach and I told him, 'If you don't start me I'm going to quit. I'm going to play for another AAU team.'"

He did start her and she recalled, "I was killing everybody. I had 27 on those girls (from Amarillo, Texas). He told me, 'I should have started you.' He knew I was good, but (thought) I was too young. I always had to earn my position. He wasn't going to give me a free pass."

She played only AAU basketball as an eighth-grader, but when it came time to enter high school as a freshman, she chose Cibola instead of her neighborhood school, Volcano Vista, which has two of the state's most talented players.

She chose Cibola "because I really liked the coach (Lori Mabrey). I really liked the way she coached. I thought she'd help me with my jump shot and it improved a lot."

Mabrey first saw Brown when she attended her camp in sixth grade. She recalled, "She was really good then, too. The draw to us was that we play man-to-man defense and she needed to be good at man-to-man to play (at the highest level) in college.

"She started all the games. What was even more impressive, she never missed a practice. I have a rule, if you miss a practice, you have to sit out a quarter. She was really extremely athletic, fast, a slice and dicer. She has to work on improving her shot. She gets a lot out of our defense. She picks kids' pockets four times a game. She gets quite a few points out of transition. Everybody game-plans her. We see a lot of zones and haven't seen a man-to-man defense in two years."

Though just a freshman, the young star averaged 16.2 points, 5.9 rebounds and three steals to help the Cougars post a 28-2 record and win their first Class 6A state championship.

Mabrey says Brown "Is actually better in high-pressure moments."

There was no higher pressure game than the 58-46 state-title victory over La Cueva (Albuquerque) during which she scored a team-high 20 points. The Cougars previously had finished second three times. Mabrey pointed out, "She played at a very different level and was incredible that day. She drained a 3-pointer at the (halftime) buzzer. That kind of sucked the life out of their team."

Brown admitted, "I thought it was going to be an air-ball."

She insists, "I never get nervous" and coach Sanchez affirms, "She is a cool cucumber, very composed. You find that with a lot of elite players."

So far this year the Cougars have posted a 7-0 record, running their two-year winning streak to 23 games. She is averaging 19 points, 9.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.5 steals. The Cibola star not only dazzles in games, but also during practice sessions. She wears a different, perfectly color-coded outfit for every practice.

She noted, "People ask me, 'Amaya, do you have a different outfit for everything?' I have over 100 different outfits. I have 15 different colored shoes. I barely have room in my closet."

Mabrey adds, "She's a good student, a really fun kid and loves dancing. She has had interest from Tennessee, Alabama, Florida State, Kansas, New Mexico, Arizona State, Louisville and Connecticut. Shea Ralph (UConn assistant coach) came to our gym."

Brown told MaxPreps, "I really like Louisville. The coaching staff is really nice and the campus is family oriented."

In closing, it would be remiss to not mention Brown's fourth-grade brother, Amari Brown, a guard who is averaging 15 points against sixth graders but pours in 30 or more against players his age.

 Coach Sanchez says admiringly, "He's phenomenal. He has every move in the book. He's another Stephen Curry."