2020-21 Player Preview: Colby Brooks

There are quite a few new faces on the roster this year, and one of them, freshman winger Colby Brooks, is a little bit more intriguing than the others. Brooks is a 6’7, 210 pound winger out of Loyola High School, in Los Angeles, California, and he is a walk-on.

Brooks averaged 16 points and eight rebounds per game his senior year and 10/5 his junior year. He can run the court, and judging by this highlight video, dunk the ball.

Of course, as a walk-on, those minutes will be few and far between this season. Brooks will spend much of his time grinding it out in practice, representing the opposing teams, and trying to help prep his teammates as much as he learns from them.

Brooks’ size is what makes him one of the more interesting newcomers on this roster. Generally speaking, walk-ons don’t have his body size. Brooks recalls a Jeremy Jones, who transferred from Rice after his freshman year to walk on at Gonzaga. He eventually earned a scholarship and ended his collegiate career at Gonzaga averaging 14.1 minutes per game, highlighted by pulling and dragging Gonzaga past its first opponent in the 2018 Maui Invitational.

We still might not see Brooks too much this season because the Zags are absolutely stacked at the wing. They can consistently throw Corey Kispert and Julian Strawther into the mix, and if foul trouble got that bad, could plop Anton Watson in there to spell a few minutes. We will see Brooks this season, but it will be very late in the half, with just a few minutes left in the game. That very well could change as the years go on.