Journey to Jadwin - Hans Brase
9/28/2020
Selflessness is a necessity for any Princeton University men's basketball player and nobody embodied it better than Hans Brase ‘17, who set the standard for what it meant to be team-first. Through his dedication to his teammates and his school, the love Brase’s teammates have for him is close to unmatched.
While he dealt with adversity in the form of injury during his last two seasons at Princeton, he was part of the Tigers' 2016-17 team that went 14-0 in Ivy League play, won the Ivy League title and made it to the NCAA Tournament. Despite being sidelined, Brase didn't miss a practice and could be counted on to be there for his teammates when they needed him.
When healthy, Brase's impact was felt on the court as he finished his career at Princeton with 863 points, 528 rebounds, 161 assists and 100 made three-pointers. He is now about to enter his third professional season in Germany.
Brase had a nomadic upbringing due to his father, Joe Brase, working for German companies that required him to move once every few years. His youth spanned two countries and five different places; born in Charlottesville, Virginia, Brase and his family would move back to Hamburg, Germany, shortly after his birth. Three years went by and the Brase family moved back to the U.S., this time to Lexington, Kentucky, for a couple of years before moving up north to Detroit, Michigan. After another couple years, Brase along with his father Joe, mother Bertina, sister Lulu and brother Janpeter, moved to Clover, South Carolina, where they live to this day.
Through all those things I grew into a very independent person.Hans Brase
“I can do a lot of things on my own and prefer to do a lot of things on my own," said Brase. I’m not scared of adventures, like what I’m doing now playing in Europe. It has its disadvantages, but I try to see a lot of the advantages because I’m not much of a homebody. I’m used to all these different places, it helped me in college moving from down south in the Carolinas up to Jersey. I never felt nervous about being too far away from home. If anything, I was excited to leave and find another journey. The independence it gave me was big time.”
The constant moving saw Brase and his family become a tight-knit unit.
“We’re a really tight family," explained Brase. “My entire family other than my parents and siblings are still in Germany.”
“When we moved around and lived in these different locations we relied on one another a lot, through that we became a really close family,” said Brase. "Being the youngest, I was always pretty quiet and the last to get certain things.”
Brase was a late bloomer in the sport of basketball but was always an athlete; during his time in Michigan he played soccer, ice hockey and participated in swimming.
“When we moved down south, I didn’t find this out until later, my parents told me there was no hockey,” proclaimed Brase. “I found out later they said that because they didn’t want to wake up at 5 a.m. for the ice time. I had a void in the winter; I played soccer in the fall and while I was a bigger guy growing up, I gravitated toward whatever my buddies were playing. In middle school the coaches asked if I had ever played basketball and since my buddies were playing, I decided to get started."
I wasn’t afraid to make a mistake, I was just out there having fun and not thinking about anything.Hans Brase
Throughout middle school, basketball was more of a fun activity for Brase and not something he took too seriously. This changed in high school.
“People around me were getting more serious about certain sports,” said Brase. “My sister, who was older, a junior, also played basketball and my brother played basketball. She was starting the recruitment process and it was new to my family being that my parents grew up in Germany. When my sister was going through the process, that’s when my family and I learned you can play basketball and it can help you go to college for free like it did with my sister, or help you get into a really good school. That was the first time I realized that I could have fun with my buddies, I’m pretty good at this and maybe this is a thing I could use to go to college.”
As Brase fell in love with the game and learned about the doors basketball could open for him, he ceased playing other sports his freshman year of high school at Gaston Day School in Gastonia, North Carolina.
Young for his grade, Brase was on track to graduate at 17. This led to a life-changing decision.
“I knew I was a late bloomer physically, so I talked to my parents and we decided to try going to a boarding school,” explained Brase. “After my junior year I went up to a boarding school outside of Philly (The Hill School), a prep basketball school and was there for my junior and senior years."
The basketball competition was even higher and on the side I learned about living on my own in a dorm, managing my time academically, preparing myself for college. It led into my senior year, then Princeton.Hans Brase
Brase was also active on the AAU circuit, playing for the Charlotte Storm his freshman year of high school.
“Going into my sophomore summer, I wanted to make the next step and started playing for one of the sponsored travel teams, Team United,” said Brase. “They’re a Nike team and it’s really when I took the next step from thinking I wanted to do this to immersing myself and really seeing all of the best players we’d play against, who were some of the best players in the country. We would often put our team in the older age group, that was the philosophy of the program, to challenge us and make it hard as possible while we were still young so it would be easier later on."
We played against the best and it opened my eyes to what I needed to do to get to that level and what I was capable of.Hans Brase
While Brase looks back on many fond memories travelling the country with his AAU teammates, there is one rather embarrassing memory from a tournament in Georgia he looks back on and laughs at.
“My team was stacked, our guards were going to Kansas and Florida,” proclaimed Brase. “It was a smaller gym and lined with a who’s-who of coaches. Coach Henderson was sitting right under the basket and I was shooting a free throw, I don’t know what happened but I airballed a free throw, which I’ve never done in my life. I just saw every coach in the gym put their head down to write something down or to look off in the distance. Coach Henderson was just crying laughing, I didn’t realize this until later on in the recruiting process when he told me the story, but that was one of the fonder, funnier and more embarrassing moments from my travel.”
Given his success in both high school and AAU, Brase attracted much attention from college coaches but would ultimately choose Princeton.
“I spent a lot of time there with the guys,” said Brase. “This was my senior year of high school, so 2011-12. I spent a lot of time with Dan Mavraides, Doug Davis, Pat Saunders and also the younger guys like Mack Darrow, Jimmy Sherburne, T.J. Bray was young on that team. I gelled with the type of personalities they had; they loved the game, loved to work hard and loved to have fun. At the same time, underneath it all there was an understanding that there was more in the world. There was something about that understanding and wordiness, whether it was subconscious or not."
While Brase faced adversity at Princeton in the form of a pair of ACL tears that caused him to miss two seasons, he also took away many treasured memories including being part of the team won the Ivy League Championship in 2017.
Being able to graduate with a banner and the way we did it, undefeated in the league and winning the first Ivy Tournament was really special.Hans Brase
Brase also loves reliving the Tigers come-from-behind win at Penn State his sophomore year.
“It was a throwback game that we played in their old gym and it was sold out,” explained Brase. “Students were on the court, it was a white-out game, it was snowing and they had a really good team at the time with two guys who would later play in the NBA."
“We were down big, 15-20 in the first half, then came back in double-overtime and ended up winning it,” explained Brase. "We got snowed into our hotel and had to stay an extra night, which was fine with us. We were pumped because of the big win.”
Since graduating, Brase used his remaining year of eligibility at Iowa State and is now entering his third season of professional basketball with the Hamburg Towers of the German Bundesliga (BBL).
Brase takes pride in the fact he has overcome multiple injuries to become a professional basketball player.
“The end of my career at Princeton was rough,” said Brase. “I spent my first three years building up and up and up; I felt on top of the world going into my senior year. That got de-railed early in October with my first ACL tear and I had to take the year off. Came back the next year and in November of my second senior year, tore my ACL again three or four games into the season. To go from that to playing a grad year at Iowa State and being able to play professionally, let alone one year now going on my third year and doing well and being on good teams."
Brase also acknowledges the crucial role his time at Princeton played in developing him into a professional basketball player.
“Hoops wise we consider ourselves a high-major program by the way we work, who we recruit, how we recruit, how we practice, how we train, the details that we focus on,” said Brase. “We always say we go into every single game preparing to win. Coupling that with being named the No. 1 national university by U.S. News & World Report for ten-straight years, everyone at the school has to do the work and is expected to do the work. It’s taught me the true definition of hard work and what great things can happen if you work extremely hard, are motivated, diligent, what I’m capable of and what people are capable of."
What we preached in basketball, coming back from the Carril days, was the details and how they matter so specifically whether it being a pass be right in your chest instead of to the side, being in the corner instead of two steps away from the corner. Having that mindset on the court and having those intangibles, it helps you succeed in life whether it’s in basketball or business or wherever life takes you. Those intangibles and tenants were instilled in us every day, whether it was on the court or off the court.Hans Brase
Along with the opportunities on the court and in the classroom, Brase is most thankful for the relationships he built at Princeton.
“People say you meet your lifelong friends at Princeton, but it’s really a brotherhood, a family,” said Brase. “There’s a group of seven or eight of us that do an annual golf trip every year. This summer we weren’t able to because of COVID. One of my teammates, Mike Washington, I started with him my freshman year and he graduated in 2016 then I graduated in 2017 because of my year off. To have brothers like that where you’ll be in their weddings, they’ll be in your wedding. We’re always texting each other, sending each other memes, calling daily and weekly, checking in to see how each other is doing. Some are still playing hoops, some hung up hoops after college. The friendships, you always say you make lifelong friends but until you are in somoene's wedding or you do these trips with your buddies, it’s a different level and is great to see. I hope, and am sure it will, continue in decades to come. I’m looking forward to reunions in the future, when its 20-year and to see the team at the time. I’m looking forward to laughing about how we were in their shoes 20 years ago."
The biggest thing is the guys on the team, the coaches, the togetherness and the family.”Hans Brase
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