Haraway passes brother on AU scoring list
Feb. 27—ASHLAND — The moment itself had been a formality for some time.
But that didn't make a simple layup any less notable.
With 5.5 seconds left in the first half of Saturday's game vs. Hillsdale College, Ashland University guard Brandon Haraway took the inbounds pass. He then drove the length of the floor, right between two defenders, and finger rolled the basketball in for two points just ahead of the halftime buzzer inside Kates Gymnasium.
The two points gave Haraway, a 2019 Norwalk graduate, 1,062 points at the NCAA Division II school. That also surpassed his oldest brother, Ben (2014 NHS graduate) on the career scoring list for the Eagles.
In the 75-65 loss, Haraway moved up from 30th to 26th on Ashland's all-time scoring list that he will only keep climbing. He takes 1,074 career points into Tuesday's GMAC tournament game vs. Cedarville.
Ben Haraway scored 319 points and was GLIAC Freshman of the Year in 2015 before transferring to AU and helping the Eagles to the NCAA Tournament as a senior in the 2018-19 season. He then added 1,060 points at Ashland for 1,379 in his collegiate career.
"It does feel good a little bit, because Ben pushed me to do everything," Brandon said. "I saw him in high school score over 1,000 points and win a state championship. I wanted to match that. I saw him get Freshman of the Year in college, and I wanted to match that.
"Now with this scoring list, I can finally say I passed him in something."
Ben Haraway scored 1,184 points at Norwalk, a figure Brandon narrowly missed (1,177) by seven points.
Brandon was also GLIAC Freshman of the Year in 2019-20, then last season (2020-21) helped the Eagles to the GLIAC Tournament title and was named MVP of the tournament. AU went on to win its first NCAA Tournament game in 30 years.
On Feb. 17, Brandon reached the 1,000-point mark — exactly four years to the date when Ben did as well.
In Saturday's game vs. Hillsdale, Brandon scored a game-high 26 points on 9-of-16 shooting. He grabbed five rebounds and added three assists.
The performance kept going what has been a red-hot February for the former Ohio Mr. Basketball finalist.
Over an eight-game stretch since the calendar turned to February, Haraway is averaging 24.3 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists for the Eagles (18-9, 14-6).
In 25 games in the regular season, Brandon led AU in scoring as he averaged 14.8 points on 47 percent shooting. He added 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game.
"Brandon's a great player," AU head coach John Ellenwood said. "He's doing everything for us and is one of the best you could ever coach.
"He works hard in the classroom, he's a great teammate — and he makes his teammates better every single day."
