Brauns will be a player to watch

It’s still very early in his high school career, but Even Brauns is a name that Iowa basketball fans are going to become very familiar with in the coming years.

The 6-foot-9 and 210 pound big man from Iowa City Regina High School averaged over 10 points and nearly 7 rebounds in his freshman season and he’s certainly turning heads on the AAU circuit this spring and summer with the Iowa Barnstormers.

Brauns was born in Minnesota and after spending a few years there, his family moved to Iowa City for five years before spending six years in Detroit. They returned to Iowa City last summer and the Iowa coaches took note right away and were watching him at the Adidas Summer Championships in Las Vegas last week.

“Coach Speraw has been to five or six of my games and that’s really the extent of the contact so far. I know they are keeping an eye on my development this summer and we will see where it goes from there,” Brauns said.

The Class of 2020 prospect doesn’t have a favorite team at the college level, but he said that Northern Iowa and Wisconsin have also showed interested and invited him to their elite camps.

Brauns played with the Barnstormers 15’s squad this spring and summer. After a slow start to the AAU season, the team really came on strong late in the year, taking home a title the next to last event in Kansas City in mid-July.

“It was a process for us for sure,” he said. We added a lot of new pieces and we had to get to know each other. By the time we got to July, we really started clicking and winning that tournament was really the highlight of the summer for us.”

The next step is to get back in the gym and continue to work on his game. Brauns is mainly a low post player for his high school team, but he wants to become a more well-rounded player and is working on his skills on the outside, including ball handling and shooting.