Basketball phenom Olivia Breen, 13, has already acquired Division I scholarship affords, even supposing she’s but to play a single sport on the high-school degree. Derek Davis/Employees Photographer
When Matt Breen, a longtime highschool basketball coach, used to take his older daughter Bailey for exercises, she’d be at one finish of the health club, tirelessly pushing her lengthy body as she practiced her capturing type, ball dealing with and footwork.
On the different finish, her sister Olivia – youthful by 4 years and a still-small third grader – could be looking for her personal enjoyable.
“Bailey could be capturing, and Olivia could be over there rolling round on the bottom doing I don’t know what,” he mentioned. “It wasn’t well worth the combat to get her to have an interest.”
However Olivia’s curiosity did construct, coinciding with a well-timed development spurt, and as she grew taller, her ardour and dedication to the game grew along with her.
Now she’s 13, 6-foot-2 and one in every of Maine’s brightest basketball abilities.
And even earlier than she enters eighth grade at Oceanside Center College, Division I faculties are taking discover.
Boston School supplied her a full scholarship in June, Robert Morris College got here on board in July, and Windfall School grew to become the third in August. That’s more likely to be just the start.
Scholarship affords earlier than highschool aren’t unprecedented nowadays. Jordyn Crump of Biddeford, quickly to be a sophomore, had a suggestion from Boston School earlier than her ninth grade season, and Anna DeWolfe was in eighth grade when she acquired her first provide from Division I Villanova. Emily Esposito and Mackenzie Holmes of Gorham and Allie Clement from McAuley additionally had affords earlier than their freshman seasons.
However such early affords stay uncommon. And for Olivia, a teen with nonetheless a yr left of center college, they’re lots to course of.
“I positively say, ‘Wait, what’s occurring?’ ” she mentioned. “I wasn’t anticipating it, nevertheless it’s what I’ve been working for. … However I by no means truly thought it could occur.”
She additionally isn’t taking her reputation as a right.
“They supplied me off my potential, and potential, like Coach Amy Vachon of Maine (girls’s basketball) mentioned, it’s one of the crucial scary phrases,” Olivia mentioned. “It’s a must to nonetheless attain that potential. I nonetheless should work for it, and I’ve to place in additional work. I’ve to work more durable now simply so I can preserve occurring my trajectory.”
TALENT ON THE RISE
Watch Olivia play, and it’s straightforward to see why Division I faculties have an interest.
There’s the mixture of top and agility, which permits her to breeze by gamers she already towers over. There’s her versatility, permitting her to play level guard in center college, middle on her previous Mode3 AAU staff, and wing – a guard and ahead hybrid – now on her Bay State Jaguars squad. There’s her outdoors shot, which leaves coaches already making an attempt to reply her top throwing up their arms in frustration.
Olivia Breen shoots round with some children at Oceanside Excessive College in Rockland on July 17. Derek Davis/Employees Photographer
“She’s so gifted for her age proper now,” mentioned Laurie Bollin, who performed at Ithaca School and coaches Bay State, a Massachusetts-based journey staff that performs in tournaments all through the nation. “She’s far past most children her personal age, particularly given her measurement that she has coupled along with her ability set and her really feel for the sport.”
All that mentioned, such descriptions pass over what Olivia loves finest.
“I really like attending to the rim,” she mentioned. “Attending to the rim’s my favourite factor.”
Bollin mentioned she’s superb when she does so.
“She has an unbelievable knack across the basket, ending on each the left and proper facet,” mentioned the coach. “She will put the ball on the ground and get downhill. … What stands out essentially the most is her capability to attain the ball. She’s actually good at offensive rebounds as nicely, and getting second probabilities for herself by being aggressive.”
These expertise are enhanced by a fiery, aggressive demeanor, in sharp distinction to Olivia’s off-court persona.
Off the court docket, she’s soft-spoken, with a self-diagnosed “laughing drawback.”
On it, she’s fierce.
“There’s one thing in her the place she simply goes off in these video games, and also you don’t know the place it comes from,” mentioned Bailey Breen, now a rising senior and star of the Oceanside Excessive ladies’ staff with Division I affords of her personal. “She’ll get fiery if you happen to get chirping at her. … She’ll take it, she’ll take it, she’ll take it, after which she’ll simply go off. When that occurs, you don’t wish to poke the bear.”
‘BORN INTO THE GAME’
Matt Breen, a lobsterman, has coached boys’ and ladies’ highschool basketball for 20 years. His spouse, Elizabeth, performed at Husson College. Their daughters have all the time been surrounded by the sport.
“I’d say I used to be born into the sport,” mentioned Olivia, who additionally has a brother Tyler, 11. “As quickly as I used to be born, I touched a basketball, I used to be round basketball, I used to be in any respect the video games.”
However she took lots longer than Bailey to heat to it.
Olivia Breen, 13, proper, an eighth grader at Oceanside Center College, and her sister Bailey, 17, a senior at Oceanside Excessive. Derek Davis/Employees Photographer
“I didn’t actually like taking part in,” Olivia mentioned. “I did it due to my mother and father and (was) doing it for them.”
Her father may see that – and that his daughter was and is a basically carefree particular person. She loves her buddies. She loves tenting with them and making TikTok movies and singing karaoke (Taylor Swift, Drake and Zach Bryan, specifically. She had hopes to see Bryan play in Foxborough, Massachusetts in July, however basketball acquired in the best way).
“If I wasn’t in an AAU match, I’d be going to that live performance,” she mentioned.
Olivia’s not all basketball on a regular basis. She likes journeys to the seashore, to lakes, to Destin, Florida, the place her household heads every year and the place she swims and retailers (“not with my cash however my mother and father’ cash,” she’s fast to level out) to her coronary heart’s delight. She loves strawberry acai lemonades from Starbucks and rooster nuggets, however she eschews one entire class of meals.
“I don’t eat any seafood,” she mentioned. “It’s one thing I completely refuse to eat. I’ll by no means give in.”
That will sound like blasphemy from a Mainer, not to mention her father’s daughter.
“I’ve heard that one just a few occasions,” she mentioned. “I’ve tried (lobster) earlier than, and I simply can’t do it.”
She’s additionally a Christian who grew up going to Sunday College, and who cites Mark 5:36 – by which Jesus says “Don’t be afraid, simply consider” – as a information.
“I waft,” Olivia mentioned. “I all the time reside by the whole lot occurs for a purpose. No matter occurs, occurs. You type of put your religion in God’s arms and let him take over.”
Her father type of took the identical method to Olivia’s early lack of curiosity in his sport.
“She was younger, and I didn’t actually wish to power something upon the children,” he mentioned. “I needed them to like the sport as a result of they cherished it, not as a result of I cherished it.”
Olivia Breen, 13, left, drives to the ring as her sister Bailey, 17, tries to cease her. Derek Davis/Employees Photographer
Olivia mentioned the change began about two years in the past, when she was going into sixth grade and rising. She noticed the instructions the game was taking Bailey and began to take basketball extra critically.
She started taking part in for the Maine Firecrackers, one of many state’s high journey groups, and competing towards high younger gamers. That competitors invigorated her.
“(I noticed) how a lot (Bailey) cherished it, and I knew that I’d like it if I began working for it,” she mentioned.
Early on, she mentioned, her massive sister needed to “drag me by my hair” to the hit the health club or go for a run.
Now Olivia enjoys the grind, whether or not it’s touring for competitions, getting up pictures early on a chilly morning or engaged on her fundamentals in a scorching, stuffy health club.
“I’ve been within the gyms at 10 o’clock at night time within the summers, and I’ve been in right here in school at 5 within the morning with Bailey,” she mentioned. “It’s 5:30 within the morning, and also you’re like, ‘Oh, God, I’ve to rise up and shoot a basketball.’ It’s simply within the second, ‘I don’t wish to do that.’ However when you do it, you are feeling nice.”
GETTING NOTICED
Division I affords for Maine gamers was a rarity. The state had no membership groups that performed on high journey circuits, so gamers had little probability to get in entrance of faculty coaches early. As a substitute, no matter consideration they acquired got here from their highschool careers, which meant they had been usually on locals’ radar solely.
“Maine wasn’t a hotbed for recruiting for schools outdoors of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and slightly little bit of Massachusetts,” mentioned Don Briggs, co-founder and former coach of the Maine Firecrackers. When Joanne Palombo-McCallie, who went on to educate at Michigan State and Duke, was on the College of Maine within the Nineteen Nineties, he mentioned “her total roster was just about made up of youngsters from Maine – however none of these youngsters had any line of sight or visibility to something outdoors of Maine or New England.”
Briggs began the Firecrackers with Brian Clement in 2005, to attempt to pull collectively a staff based mostly on ability over age that will have the ability to compete nationally. Different elite membership groups have adopted and have given Maine gamers an opportunity to be seen youthful. That’s led to Mackenzie Holmes going to Indiana, DeWolfe to Fordham and Esposito to Villanova.
These gamers, Briggs mentioned, began the wave that Olivia is using now.
“It’s simpler to get entry to expertise. It’s extra seen than it was traditionally,” he mentioned. “That’s taking nothing away from Olivia and her ability set. You’ve acquired to be good.”
Olivia Breen tries to dam her sister Bailey’s lane to the basket whereas capturing round at Oceanside Excessive College in July. Olivia, 13, describes her older sister, 17, as her “experience or die.” Derek Davis/Employees Photographer
She’s additionally benefiting from a reasonably new phenomenon within the school recruiting scene.
“At greater ranges, and perhaps some low- to mid-major ranges, they’ll see a really younger participant and wish to be the primary to supply,” mentioned Boston College affiliate head coach and recruiting coordinator Brianna Finch. She’s seen it occur, she mentioned, within the final 5 to eight years.
Tournaments corresponding to AAU competitions and showcases permit coaches to see these gamers even sooner than they used to.
“There are extra alternatives for youthful gamers to be attending a few of these nationwide analysis tournaments,” Finch mentioned. “As a coach, I’m not going to a center college sport. … I’m not going to see that participant until they’re taking part in in a match at an analysis interval. And there weren’t as many alternatives.”
Olivia wasn’t anticipating her first provide when she went to a Boston School elite camp with Bailey on June 21. For 4 hours, she performed video games and did drills whereas underneath the watch of Eagles coaches, together with head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee.
NCAA guidelines prohibit coaches from contacting athletes till June of their sophomore yr. However the subsequent day, Bernabei-McNamee contacted Bollin, Olivia’s AAU coach, who then advised Matt Breen to have Olivia give the BC coach a name.
“Her phrases had been, ‘I’m providing you a scholarship to Boston School,’ ” Olivia mentioned. “It feels unreal. … It felt superb. I even teared up, and I’m not one to tear up.”
Hype and strain, nonetheless, usually include all the eye.
“I really feel like now that it’s on the market, lots of people predict me to play like a Division I basketball participant. So it places strain on me to ship what they wish to see,” Olivia mentioned. “Generally each particular person has a nasty sport, and that is like nicely, I can’t actually do this, as a result of I don’t wish to disappoint these folks that suppose I’m actually good. … These people who find themselves like ‘Oh, she’s D-I,’ after which I’m going out and airball a 3.”
Highschool is more likely to carry extra affords and telephone calls. For now, the strain is generally inner, pushed by her personal expectations. And when that builds up, she finds a reduction valve. She goes to the health club and will get misplaced in her observe. Or she places on an episode of “Gray’s Anatomy” and will get absorbed by the drama. Or she goes for a jog and will get swept away by the music she’s taking part in.
“I put each AirPods in and simply blast music and run,” she mentioned.
To get herself prepared for the longer term, she usually watches her sister. Bailey has performed her entire Oceanside profession within the highlight, and with that spotlight comes detractors and followers of opposing groups typically chanting “overrated” to attempt to throw her off her sport.
“She will get them,” Olivia mentioned, gesturing to her sister. “(You might want to) simply be composed, and don’t let different individuals get to you about what they’re going to suppose. It’s not their opinion to have, you don’t want it. You already know you’re good.”
Olivia calls her sister “my experience or die” and mentioned she speaks to her about nearly the whole lot.
“I’m going to her for each single query I’ve. She’s like my very own private assist middle,” Olivia mentioned. “I ask her for assistance on massive, little issues. I even ask her ‘What the hell do I put on?’ … Actually, what do I put on to sleep? These are the questions I’ll ask her.”
Quickly to come back are questions on coping with recruiting, and staying centered. And Bailey’s prepared to assist.
“After I watch her play, I’ll give her suggestions after, issues like that. However actually, for me, it’s off the court docket and mentoring her in that recruiting piece of it,” Bailey mentioned. “Maintaining it so it doesn’t stress her out and she or he doesn’t get in over her head. Simply navigate her via that course of.”
Olivia Breen, an eighth grader at Oceanside Center College, has her sights set on a spot within the WNBA sometime. Derek Davis/Employees Photographer
Olivia’s wanting ahead to the assistance – and to seeing the place basketball can take her.
“My general aim is to make it to the WNBA … particularly now seeing the place it’s going, and seeing that it’s truly turning into one thing just like the NBA with packed stands,” she mentioned. “It’s turning into one thing that I actually wish to be taking part in in.”
