Yale's Brandon Sherrod breaks NCAA record after a capella world tour
Yale sophomore point guard Makai Mason drew two Columbia defenders as he came off Brandon Sherrod’s screen.
Mason pump faked, jumped and somehow flipped a pass to Sherrod for a point-blank, uncontested layup, putting the Bulldogs up 15-10 in the first half of Friday evening’s win over Columbia.
In the midst of a breakout season, Sherrod had broken an NCAA record with his 27th consecutive made field goal. He’d extend that streak to 30 later in the half.
"He's playing at a level off the charts," Yale coach James Jones said after Friday’s win.
What’s remarkable about Sherrod’s emergence is that this time last year, he was away from the team completely, preparing to travel the world as an a capella singer … a 6-foot-6, 240-pound a capella singer.
In the spring of 2014, Sherrod was selected to be a tenor-II in the Whiffenpoofs, a group that considers itself the oldest and best-known collegiate a capella group in the world. The Whiffenpoofs, composed of 14 male seniors from Yale, tour and perform around the world for a year.
This means no school and, in Sherrod’s case, no basketball.
Sherrod would step away from an Ivy League favorite in 2014-15, a team with aspirations of appearing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1962.
“One of the things that we do when we’re recruiting our players, we tell them about all the opportunities Yale has,” Jones said. “This was an opportunity that was impossible for Brandon to pass up. It was one of those things where you felt great for Brandon.”
The same sentiments came from his teammates.
“The amazing thing was that guys were saying, ‘If you didn’t take this opportunity, I’d be mad at you.’ I remember Justin Sears said that,” Sherrod told FOX Sports in October.
“Javier Duren, who’s one of my best friends, we talked about it extensively before I even made a decision. He told me, ‘You have to think about what’s being placed in front of you.’ I was glad I was able to realize the opportunity I had."
Music was Sherrod’s first love, after all.
Sherrod, who plays drums, piano, organ and saxophone, grew up singing in the church choir at Jesus Saves Ministry in his hometown of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
He started an a capella group at his high school and sang with the Maiyeros when he prepped at Choate Rosemary Hall. While at Yale, Sherrod had joined the a capella group The Living Water, but would step away after a semester.
“The groups are way more intense at Yale,” Sherrod said. “You have a more rigorous schedule, like three-four practices a week for an hour or two. It just became difficult to balance both worlds.”
Sherrod didn’t begin playing basketball until he was a teenager. As he walked the halls of Stratford High as a freshman, he was 6-2 and said he weighed 315 pounds.
“I was a heavy kid,” he said. “Lot of laziness. I wasn’t very active.”
His height was enough to get him on the freshman basketball team, but he later found out from coaches that he was almost cut.
A more active lifestyle and a drastic diet change helped Sherrod get down to 220 pounds by the start of his sophomore season. By the time he was a senior, he was the Connecticut’s Gatorade Player of the Year and had led the Red Devils to back-to-back state titles. He’d spend a postgraduate year at the prestigious Choate Rosemary Hall before traveling 14 miles down the road to attend Yale in the fall of 2011.
Sherrod sat in his car on March 7 and watched on his phone as Dartmouth stormed back to defeat Yale in the regular-season finale. Harvard had handled Brown an hour earlier, which meant the Bulldogs and Crimson were tied atop the Ivy League standings.
Harvard beat Yale in a one-game playoff a week later to advance to its fourth straight NCAA Tournament.
“Part of me was upset that I wasn’t part of that season and knowing I could have helped to contribute,” Sherrod said. “I was very broken up after the Dartmouth and Harvard games.”
Two months after Yale’s season ended, the Whiffenpoofs embarked on a three-month international tour. The a capella group made stops in several basketball-crazy countries. When Sherrod would go running with some of his fellow members, if he spotted a court, he’d ditch the group and play a few pickup games with some of the local players.
“I met some really cool people in Turkey. I found a random court with some really good players,” he said. “In Cologne, Germany, I got to play for a week with a friend of mine. In Israel, at the kibbutz we were staying at, they had a court. I found a lot of places to play. It’s a different style over there.”
Sherrod returned to New Haven in August, where he rejoined a Yale team that was pegged as one of the favorites in the Ivy League once again this season. Back on the front line, Sherrod and Sears, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year, have formed the league’s top rebounding tandem and have led the Bulldogs to a 6-0 start in conference play.
Last year, Sherrod took full advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He has a chance to do so again this spring, only this time it'll be on the hardwood with his teammates, as the Bulldogs look to end their NCAA Tournament drought.
"I guess taking the year off has opened my eyes to how fortunate I am to be able to play the game that I love everyday," Sherrod said.
