Golden Nuggets: Articles on Jaylen and Jaelyn Brown

Basketball

All of the following basketball articles were published either before or inbetween the WSU and UW games, and this goes for both men’s and women’s.

Men’s

• You may not have seen him play for Cal (other than a few minutes yesterday) but the story of Derek King’s basketball career is one you should definitely read.

King would return to Northern California to play for Foothill College, a selection made because he had a friend from Santa Teresa who played for the team. Much to the tune of his transition from SMIC to Santa Teresa, King would have to start from scratch and learn along the way.

“I came off the bench my first year at Foothill. It was kinda disappointing because I thought I was going to come in and dominate right away,” King says. “It was Princeton offense, super complicated offense. Very detailed, team-oriented program. It took me a while to get used to it.”

The challenges that came with adapting to the Princeton offense, a scheme that doesn’t allow for an individual contributor to bask in the spotlight, showed up in the stat sheet. In the Owls’ first 23 games of the season, King would score a combined 50 points.

“Going to a junior college, I thought I was going to produce right away.” King says. “Some days, I’d pretty much be depressed, but I told myself to stay the course and stick with it.”

King’s perseverance would be rewarded with a string of stellar performances toward the end of the season, including an 11-point performance against No. 1 Fresno City College in the playoffs.

• Justice Sueing has been a bright spot on the team... but you may be wondering where he got the name Justice from? Daily Cal has the scoop.

While Sueing’s ability to assess and digest a situation is undoubtedly an innate quality, it’s been aided by a philosophy of life that has been instilled in him by his family — and his name.

Sueing shares a name with his father, and while they aren’t arranged in a Sr.-Jr. binary, it nonetheless carries a family significance. To find the origins of this shared name, you’d have to go back two generations, to Sueing’s paternal grandfather, who fought for the United States in the Vietnam War.

When Sueing’s grandfather came back to the United States after fighting, he was disappointed and disheartened by the fact that the treatment he received as a Black man in this country hadn’t changed for the better.

The experience so deeply haunted the veteran that the family collectively decided to name the next male child born “Justice” — as a reminder to both treat others and demand to be treated in a just manner. The elder Sueing was fortunate to come next in the lineage, and when the time came for him to name his own son, he decided that the name carried enough gravity to be passed on to his son.

“(My father) doesn’t stand for things that aren’t fair, and he’s always looking to do the right thing — so he passed that on to me,” Sueing says. “It’s the same thing to me. He really taught me a lot of values, especially from a young age, that I carry on today.”

The name carries a special meaning for both the elder and younger Sueing, and it helps to guide them toward deliberate and meaningful ways of life.

“When I had my son, I thought that I wanted to give him a name with some meaning,” the elder Sueing says. “Plus, it’s how I was going to raise him — to be a certain type of person or try to direct him to be a certain individual.”

• Daily Cal looks to the future of Cal men’s basketball as far as who is staying, leaving, and coming in.

Women’s

• Jaelyn Brown (or as Coach G calls her, the “microwave”) is getting hot at the right time. (Get it???)

Brown is making pretty much everything look simple these days, having posted double-figure points in four of the past six games to provide the Bears a much-needed scoring lift off the bench.

The 6-foot-1 sophomore’s bump in production came just as Cal (18-9, 9-7 in Pac-12) was going through an extended shooting slump and a coinciding skid.

“We were definitely in a slump there, and I am trying to do whatever’s needed on the court,” Brown said this week before the team traveled to the Washington schools for the final week of the regular season. “I want to be a go-to person. I want to be able to produce when I come off the bench and give a spark.”

NBA

• Hey, remember Jaylen Brown? Good times, I’m not getting sad thinking about it at all. Well find out about how the NBA All-Star weekend in LA was from his perspective (roughly 11 minute video ahead).

Misc.

• The Daily Cal chimes in with their take on Elizabeth Swaney.

Go Beers.