Bryson Scott ready to rejuvenate career at IPFW

When Bryson Scott announced he was transferring from Purdue, one school immediately became the front runner to be his new destination. The IPFW Mastodons were a match made in heaven for the former top-100 recruit to get his college career back on track. Scott spent his high school career in Fort Wayne at Northrop High School, and finished his career as the school’s all-time leading scorer with 2,042 points.

Despite being touted as a player that could contribute immediately for the Boilermakers, Scott couldn’t seem to find consistency with his game. He showed flashes early as a freshman in non-conference play, but struggled to make an impact once the Big Ten season rolled around.

His sophomore season wasn’t much better.

Scott again found himself on the bench as transfer Jon Octeus handled a majority of the playing time at the point. It worsened when he ended up in Matt Painter’s dog house, and regularly found himself watching other guards get the nod. One of the few high points was high performance against rival Indiana, playing a season-high 22 minutes and scoring 11 points. Overall, he averaged only 8.4 minutes per game in conference play, and it was anticipated by most that he would transfer to a different program.

Now that he’s found a stable program in his hometown, Scott is in a situation where he can be the player that many believed he should have been two years ago. IPFW should be a contender to win the Summit League title and make the NCAA tournament, and the addition of Scott will play a major factor in that. He will help replace the lost production from the graduation of last year’s Summit League Player of the Year, Max Landis.

One of the problems that plagued Scott at Purdue was making the transition to a college point guard. In high school, he thrived as a slashing scorer while his brother, Brenton Scott, handled a lot of the facilitator duties. During his sophomore season at Purdue, Scott turned the ball over on 21.3 percent of his possessions, and that ballooned to 32.3 percent in conference play. Combining that with a low assist rate and shooting percentage ultimately was Scott’s undoing as a Boilermaker.

At IPFW, Scott should be able to get back to what made him such a sought-after recruit. Scott will combine with John Konchar and Mo Evans to form one of the best backcourts around. He excels as an attacker, and thrives at getting into the paint ahead of the defensive rotations. He also has the potential to be a bulldog on defense, using his quickness to hound opposing guards into turnovers and getting easy transition buckets. Being able to share ball-handling duties with Konchar and Evans should allow him to focus on doing what he’s comfortable with.

A player’s "fit" at a program is arguably the biggest factor to their success. A player may have a high level of talent, but sometimes their piece just doesn’t fit into the puzzle. It’s clear that Scott has the game to be a successful college basketball player, especially at the mid-major level. Now that he’s back in a place where he found so much success before his college career, don’t be surprised if he is the missing piece that propels the Mastodons to the NCAA Tournament.