Colorado Player of the Week: Braxton Bertolette (2017)
In the scorching heat of Las Vegas back in July, Braxton Bertolette caught fire on the grassroots trail with the Colorado Hawks.
He hasn’t cooled off since.
Bertolette, a 6-foot-2 sharpshooter at Fossil Ridge, began his junior season last week by averaging 31 points over his first three games — helping the Sabercats go 2-1. He hit 16-of-36 shots (44 percent) from 3-point range, 15-of-19 (78.9) inside the arc and 15-of-16 (93.8) at the free-throw line.
That high-volume, high-efficiency string of performances helped Bertolette earn the season’s first Prep Hoops Colorado Player of the Week honor, receiving 42 percent of the vote.
“He has good basketball IQ and he does understand the game,” Fossil Ridge coach Matt Johanssen said. “I don’t know if I’ve seen anyone work more on their skills. He’s constantly got a ball in his hand, working on ball-handling, working on shooting. He’s very good with all those things. We’re trying to add even more to his game, but right now those are the things that are allowing him to do what he’s doing.”
Bertolette said he has had that ball in his hand for as long as he can remember, constantly perfecting his craft during practice sessions with his dad Martin.
“I’ve been training for a really long time to prepare to be successful,” he said.
Bertolette averaged 12.7 points per game as a sophomore last season, but Johanssen challenged him to get stronger and develop on the defensive end. Bertolette met the challenge, and as a result has established himself as the Sabercats’ go-to player.
The sharpshooter gave a preview of things to come in July when he led the Hawks’ talented 16U squad in scoring at better than 25 points per game.
“That really helped my confidence,” he said. “Mainly because I was playing with some of he best other players in the state on my team and they were feeding me the ball. I proved to myself that I was good enough to be that type of player.”
Bertolette got rolling early and often last week, beginning with a victory over Thornton in which he scored a game-high 33 points and nailed six 3-pointers. Two nights later, in a narrow loss to Denver East, he tallied 32 points with eight 3-pointers.
The guard found himself in the zone that often only elite shooters are able to explain.
“I feel like once I hit a couple threes,” he said, “I’m in my rhythm and I’m pretty sure the next one is going to go in, because once I hit a couple my confidence is really high.”
Bertolette was quick to give credit to his teammates for putting him in position last week, an effort that was also applauded by Johanssen.
“His teammates are willing passers,” the coach said. “They’re setting screens, they’re passing the ball. They’re certainly helping him out with that.”