‘Crazy basketball-loving family’ making history at Bracken County

Bracken County boys’ basketball is a true family affair for head coach Adam Reed, who claims nephews, cousins and his three sons on the Polar Bears’ 14-player roster.

“We’re a crazy basketball-loving family from Maysville,” Reed said. “I was born and raised in Augusta and we moved to Maysville 10 or 12 years ago. We love it. We love NBA. We watch college. Anything sports or competitive, we’re watching it together. We’re all fussing and fighting and arguing who is the best.”

Adam and Tera Reed’s second-oldest son, Blake, a 5-foot-11 junior, already ranks among the greatest scorers in Kentucky boys’ high school basketball history. Blake Reed topped 3,000 career points against district rival Mason County on Tuesday in the White, Greer & Maggard Holiday Classic at Lexington Catholic.

Blake Reed’s 3,052 points through Wednesday’s game puts him just 140 points shy of Bracken County’s all-time career scoring leader Austin Crawford on the state’s all-time list. Crawford scored 3,192 points for the Polar Bears from 2013 to 2017. Because Blake scored 362 of his career points as a seventh-grader at Augusta, he won’t pass Crawford on the school’s scoring list until he reaches 3,555 points.

But with more than a season and a half potentially left in his playing career, he’s sure to pass several more on the state’s all-time list. He’s already in the top 40. He’s able to score despite his lack of size and despite many teams keying on him. At one point Tuesday, three Mason County defenders squared him up at once.

“He scored 59 the other day in our rivalry game against Augusta and he came upstairs when I was lying in bed and I said, ‘What’s it like?’” Adam Reed joked. “I’m proud as a father of all of his accomplishments. As a coach, him and me both just want to win so bad — those 3,000 points, if there’s a win behind it, it means a lot.”

The last-second 65-63 loss to Mason County might have spoiled the milestone for Blake Reed for now. He’d trade that milestone and the 47 points he put up against the No. 8 team in the state for a win.

“I knew I was going to do it. I wasn’t even that excited,” Blake Reed said. “I didn’t even know when I did it.”

For the record, he crossed the 3,000 mark with his first basket of the third quarter. He scored 19 that period, including a step-back three-pointer at the buzzer that gave Bracken a 50-46 lead going into the final frame.

The Reeds’ oldest, Alexis “AJ” Reed, played for Mason County and went to the Girls’ Sweet 16 with the Royals as a freshman. She scored 623 points as a high-schooler and followed in her dad’s footsteps as a player for the University of Pikeville, where she was second-team All-Mid-South Conference as a junior. She’s currently a graduate assistant coach at Wheeling University.

Their adopted son, Ju’Shod Commodore, a 6-foot senior, has been injured part of this season, but averaged 5.7 points per game for Bracken last season.

Youngest son Cayden Reed, a 5-10 sophomore, starts alongside Blake in Bracken’s backcourt and topped 1,000 points for his career in Bracken’s season-opening 87-63 win over Bourbon County. With his 14 points Tuesday against Mason County, Cayden passed his father on Bracken’s career scoring list with 1,184 points to Adam Reed’s 1,182, according to stats kept by 10thRegion.com’s Will Jones, a Bracken County alumnus.

“There’s a lot of numbers and basketballs hanging around the house,” Coach Reed said. “I’ve never done the math, but there’s a lot of points at our kitchen table.”

As an Augusta native, Reed played for Bracken County in the late 1990s, helping the Polar Bears to the All “A” Classic as its 10th Region champ in 1998. That was Bracken’s last appearance in the small-school tournament until last season.

He took over as Bracken coach in 2019, his first high school head coaching job after a stint as an assistant at Augusta and several years coaching his kids in AAU. He still coaches AAU, meaning his kids have to deal with dad and coach year-round.

“When they were young, it was hard, because they couldn’t separate dad from coach,” Reed said. “But in year two I was able to separate and say, ‘When I get in the gym, I’m the coach. Let’s not make this a personal, daddy thing. I’m going to coach everybody the same, coach everybody hard.’”

When Reed took over Bracken, the Polar Bears had come off back-to-back losing seasons. It took two more seasons for Reed to turn it around.

Bracken’s 24-10 mark last year included the school’s first appearance in the 10th Region finals since its only region win as “Bracken County” in 1955. The school, known as Brooksville High School until 1947, won the Boys’ Sweet 16 in 1939 and five region titles under that name. Last season’s 24 wins were the most for the Polar Bears since they won 30 in 1955.

Bracken has started this season 9-4 after losing to Covington Holy Cross 89-76 on a short turnaround Wednesday afternoon. They are scheduled to play again Thursday in LexCath’s Alumni Gym.

Given how far Bracken County has come, Coach Reed was able to put Tuesday’s loss to Mason County in perspective.

“It was a great game, a great atmosphere,” he said. “We played with tremendous effort defensively and offensively. I’m just proud of my guys. This wasn’t our turn. We wanted this game to see where we were at. They are a top five team in the state. They had to hit a game-winner to beat us. And we like where we’re at. …

“This was a heartbreaker, but this doesn’t define us. We’re here for the long haul.”

Holiday tournament winners’ bracket

Where: Lexington Catholic

Tickets: $10

Streaming: Go.PrepSpin.com (pay per view)

Wednesday’s quarterfinals

Mason County 50, Madison Central 44

Lexington Catholic 61, Bowling Green 44

North Oldham 81, North Laurel 67

Lyon County, 86, Ballard 80

Thursday’s semifinals

Lexington Catholic vs. Lyon County, (n)

Mason County vs. North Oldham, (n)

Friday’s games

Third-place game, 5:30 p.m.

Championship, 7 p.m.