Last Wednesday at UMBC, hidden in the box score of the Binghamton men’s basketball team’s crushing overtime loss, freshman forward Thomas Bruce had what was until this point was the best game of his collegiate career.
The 6-foot-9-inch Bruce shot seven for nine that game, a 77.8 percent clip, with a season-high 18 points, eight rebounds and two blocks. When viewed within the context of his past 10 games, however, the performance hardly stands alone. Excluding that game, six of his past 10 performances have included double-digit points and, over that stretch, he has shot 65.5 percent from the field. The game was a culmination of what had been a recent string of solid performances, and has proven Bruce’s potential to be a key to a successful Binghamton basketball program in the coming years.
Bruce, much like the Bearcats at large, had a struggling start to the year with a lack of consistency. In his first 10 games of his rookie campaign, Bruce averaged 4.6 points per game. But since then, he’s risen to an average 8.5 points per game, and in the team’s last 10 games, Bruce has averaged 9.3. The rookie has delivered 7.0 points per game on the season and has blocked 26 shots, which ranks him fifth in the conference.
“It felt pretty good, just to get in a flow and everything, scoring,” Bruce said. “Everything’s starting to come to me, so it feels really good.”
The game in Baltimore acted as a homecoming of sorts for the Washington, D.C. native. According to Bruce, he had “maybe 10-15 family members present.” At UMBC, however, Bruce was also met with a group of familiar faces that may have been torn over who to root for in a matchup of Bruce and his high school teammate Jarius Lyles, who scored 25 points in the game. Both Bruce and Lyles were products of DeMatha Catholic High School (Hyatsville, Maryland). DeMatha Catholic, a powerhouse in high school basketball, has produced the likes of current Orlando Magic guard Victor Oladipo and the Knicks’ Jerian Grant, in addition to 14 players currently in NCAA programs. The advice Bruce took away most from everyone, however, was only tangentially related to basketball itself.
“Everybody says pretty much the same thing: ‘keep your head in the books and everything else will come with that,’” Bruce said. “I just try to follow that and take that with me.”
In his freshman year, even when faced with the steep learning curve from high school to college basketball, Bruce was afforded the fourth most minutes on the team, becoming its fourth leading scorer. Bruce’s 690 minutes played came despite being sidelined for two games with a concussion suffered against Michigan State.
“The injury was a quick recovery, wasn’t anything that was too major, just a little setback,” Bruce said. “I don’t really think it bothered me too much.”
Bruce has started 18 of his 25 games this year and the final 13 games of the regular season. On a young Binghamton team that features no seniors, Bruce played an important role in what was BU’s best regular season finish in five years.
“I feel like I was pretty prepared for it and everything,” Bruce said. “Just coming from where I came from, DeMatha, pretty much set me up and put me in a position to where I could handle myself in those minutes and doing things in those minutes.”
This season, when Bruce has played well on both ends of the floor, Binghamton has played well. The question that still remains is whether Bruce’s recent string of consistent play can help the Bearcats to an America East (AE) Tournament run.
“I had the expectation of coming in and trying to help where I could,” Bruce said. “I knew it wouldn’t be an instant huge improvement, but we’re getting there, we’re slowly getting there. We’re definitely progressing and we’re definitely becoming a better team.”