Brayden Reynolds has bond with FDU coach: ‘Don’t ever stop being a walk-on’
Brayden Reynolds has bond with FDU coach: ‘Don’t ever stop being a walk-on’
Jack Castleberry knows what it’s like to go from walk-on to scholarship player. His coaching could unlock even more from Reynolds this year.
HACKENSACK – As Jack Castleberry begins his second season as head coach of FDU basketball, one of his go-to players will be Brayden Reynolds, a 6-foot-1 guard who began his college career as a walk-on.
Castleberry himself was in Reynolds’ shoes not long ago, as a walk-on at Virginia Military Institute who was “scholarshipped” halfway through his stay there. That background might make him the perfect coach for Reynolds at this moment in time.
“I think there’s a weird dynamic when you go from walk-on to scholarship guy,” Castleberry told me Monday. “I actually experienced it myself, where you think you’re something different now. Yet the reason you’re a scholarship guy is because of all the stuff you did when you were a walk-on.”
Reynolds came to FDU without a scholarship despite being considered the top player in the Pittsburgh metro his senior year of high school, evidenced by his Post-Gazette Player of the Year honors. He was holding out for a Division I roster spot, and it finally came when Tobin Anderson, who’d recruited Reynolds at D2 St. Thomas Aquinas, took a job at a small university on the Hackensack River and gave him a call.
Ask either Reynolds or Castleberry, an FDU assistant coach at that point, and they’ll tell you there weren’t any expectations for his freshman campaign. But he worked his way into the rotation and averaged 14 minutes over his final 10 games. Reynolds grabbed a career-high six rebounds in the NEC championship game against Merrimack and scored four points in the NCAA First Four win against Texas Southern.
“When you’re a walk-on, I feel like a lot of guys understand, the presumption is you’re not gonna play a lot or you’re not gonna play at all,” Reynolds said, “and you just kind of got to be that guy on the team that is like a vocal leader in a way. You just gotta show up every day and just try to help the team as best you can. Things kind of turned out the best way they could for me, and I got to play and got to do some fun stuff too with it.”
That fun stuff included a surprise NIL offer from Degree deodorant when the Knights bowed out of the NCAA Tournament in the Round of 32. Degree’s idea was to give $25,000 to five standout walk-ons, and the “team” had one spot left to fill.
“They texted me I think two days after we lost to FAU,” Reynolds said. “At first I thought it was a scam, I didn’t think it was real. Usually whenever somebody says they’re gonna give you a boatload of money over the phone, you’re like, ‘Nah, there’s no way this is real.’”
As part of the sponsorship, Reynolds was flown to the Final Four, where he got to meet the likes of Julius Erving. When he got back to New Jersey, some big news was waiting for him from Castleberry, who had taken over when Anderson went to Iona: Reynolds was being converted to a scholarship player.
“If you can’t put a kid who’s playing double-figure minutes for you as a freshman in the NCAA Tournament on scholarship, I don’t know what the heck to do,” Castleberry grinned. “If he hasn’t earned it then, then he’s never gonna earn it. But he had more than earned it and we were happy to do it.”
As Reynolds put it: “From whenever we made it to Selection Sunday till Jack put me on a scholarship, my end of the year, I couldn’t have wrote a story any better, to be honest.”
Castleberry, 40, was a junior at VMI when he was bumped up from walk-on to scholarship. He’s quick to say Reynolds is a better player than he was, and on a better team, but what Castleberry recognized in Reynolds’ sophomore year was an increase in his internal expectations.
Reynolds had a fine sophomore season, in which he chipped in 2.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.1 steals per game. His scoring ticked up modestly, but Castleberry could tell he was overthinking that end of the floor.
“We’ve had these conversations recently where it’s like I fully understand and embrace, ‘Hey man, I was this hard-nosed scrappy guy,’” Castleberry said. “‘My scoring’s going to come organically through the flow of the offense. It’s not going to be something where I have to go out and create this stuff.’ And I think what’s helped him so far this year – and he’s been phenomenal – is he’s taken the pressure of his expectations last year, and what he was supposed to morph into, that pressure’s no longer there. Now it’s like he’s just free to play basketball again.”
Castleberry praised Reynolds’ intelligence and feels that as a junior, Reynolds will post eight points a game, “if not more,” by playing this way.
Only three players from the 2023 Cinderella team remain on the FDU roster: Jo’el Emanuel, Cameron Tweedy and Reynolds. That trio is set to be role models for the rest of the guys in the locker room, with young guys looking to Reynolds’ grittiness in particular.
“(Castleberry) always talks about how he wants us to be that tough team, and he feels like I embody that,” Reynolds said. “I feel like that’s kinda why he put me on scholarship, because I just embody what he wants as a player.
“I feel like that’s the best way that I can lead – just being who I am as a person, and same thing with (his teammates) too.”
FDU has its sights set on another Northeast Conference title, and with three NCAA Tournament trips since 2016, there’s no reason to think the Knights can’t make another run at it. They’re expected to rank highly in the preseason coaches’ poll when the NEC releases it later this week.
FDU has set itself up for continued success in large part by finding diamonds in the rough, like Reynolds, and placing belief in them as they grow their games.
“Him and I have that bond,” Castleberry said. “I always talk to him about this, I’m like, ‘Don’t ever stop being a walk-on. That’s what makes you special.’ He’s done an incredible job with it and we’re really pleased with his development.”
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Thanks as always for reading. I had a great visit with FDU on Monday as I wind down my personal preseason tour. I should have another story on a different Knight cooking for November, plus there will be broader takeaways in next week’s overarching mid-majors preview.
For now, I’ll leave you with three more notes and quotes about FDU as we clean the glass:
Tweedy’s last game was the Round of 32 loss to FAU; he then tore his ACL before the 2023-24 season. This was a player who put up 10 points (5-of-6 shooting) and six rebounds in the Purdue upset. “Cam Tweedy is a massive influence in practice,” Castleberry said. “People really respect Cam’s voice. And a lot of that is because he is such a good person, that he is always there for people and he also works incredibly hard. So he’s well-liked and he’s well-respected for what he can do on the court and for the person that he is off the court. That kind of guy is a guy that can really impact the locker room.”
The Knights’ top two returning scorers are Emanuel, who had an enormous jump in his sophomore season and is give or take a top-five player in the conference this year, and Terrence Brown, a stellar two-way guard who made the NEC All-Rookie Team. In both players, Castleberry said he’s looking forward to them taking “ownership” as leaders of the team. “We’ve seen what it means to truly embody a winning team,” Emanuel said. “That March Madness run, it doesn’t happen without each one of those guys buying in 100 percent. So just having that experience and being able to lead the team in terms of showing them, ‘This is what it takes to win,’ I think that’s gonna be a huge part of my leadership role this year.”
Among the newcomers I’m most excited to see are grad transfers Ahmed Barba-Bey and Bismark Nsiah, who played in multiple Division II NCAA Tournaments at Jefferson University. Anyone who’s followed the FDU story in recent years and hears “D2 tournament experience” should feel their Spidey senses tingling, recalling how the lights weren’t too bright for STAC grad transfers Demetre Roberts and Grant Singleton when FDU toppled Purdue. “I hope that’s the same pattern,” Castleberry said. “No, they’re great players, man. I think they both had over 70 assists last year, and neither of them was a primary ball-handler for Jefferson.” (Barba-Bey had 132 assists and Nsiah, a forward, had 82 in 32 games.)