Prospect Spotlight: Tommy Mangrum (2020)

The Charlottesville area is home to some of the best boarding schools in terms of both academics and basketball when it comes to the likes of Miller School, STAB and Blue Ridge. However, they aren’t the only schools that produce solid basketball players, as many of the public schools have seen success in the past few years as well.

One of those has been Western Albemarle, who has made several deep postseason runs in Class 3 the past few years. They’ve had players such as Ryan Ingram and Chris McGarren go on to play basketball in college, and it looks like their next player of that caliber will be rising senior Thomas Mangrum

The 6’5” post player started out the gates well before an injury slowed him down, and while Western had an up-and-down season it ended as a good learning experience for both Mangrum and the rest of their group, who hope to build on that success and see if they can make a deeper run his senior season.

“For Western Albemarle, I thought we had a great regular season, and even though we fell short in the playoffs I think that’s a good learning experience for the rest of the team. We return a lot of guys next season and I think we’ll be really strong next year and have a chance to make a run at the state tournament like two years ago.”

This summer, Mangrum has been playing for Team Loaded 434-Hawes, a team full of under the radar talent much like himself. While he plays in the post in high school, he’s getting more of an opportunity this summer to show his versatility as he’s playing all over the court in multiple positions. It’s one of the things he says he’s trying to show some college coaches this year.

“I think all of us are trying to show college coaches what we’ve got,” Mangrum said. “ I think, personally, I’m just trying to show my game, show that I can do all aspects of it, just try to be successful and win the tournaments more than anything and see where that takes me.”

“Personally, I think I can do most aspects of the game,” he continued. “I can play on the perimeter as well as play in the post, I just think I’m a relatively complete player.”

One thing is for sure, wherever Mangrum plays and whoever he plays against he always seems to produce well. He has soft touch from all over the floor, he plays with a high motor on both ends of the floor, he rebounds well in and out of his area and he’s a natural born leader who leads by example.

These are just some of the reasons Mangrum thinks coaches should recruit him, along with the fact that he’s easy to like and get along with.

“I’m a good player, I’m a good person, I’m a good teammate and I’m going to play extremely hard for you.

Be sure to check out Mangrum and the rest of his talented Team Loaded 434 team this July!