Inside the Coast hoops program drawing college prospects from Australia to Africa
The Grace Baptist Academy boys basketball program has built a reputation regionally as a competitive squad that plays in tournaments around the South, but you’d be hard-pressed to find Mississippi Gulf Coast residents familiar with the tiny Ocean Springs school or much less aware that it sponsors a varsity basketball team.
For the few Coast basketball fans who have seen the team take the court, there has to be an instant recognition that the Grace Baptist Academy squad is unlike any other private school program in Mississippi, which has most of its college prospects come out of the public school system.
There are four players on the GBA roster who stand 6-foot-8 or taller, with the tallest being a 6-11 junior by the name of Ganza Rawlings. The team’s leading scorer is a 6-6 senior guard, Tana Kapa, who is averaging 19.5 points and 4.5 assists.
If you listen closely to the chatter among the GBA players on the court, you’ll also realize that these aren’t local school boys. You’re much more likely to hear an Australian accent than a Southern twang.
Of the Eagles’ 11 players, seven are Australian. Kapa is from Perth, Australia; Rawlings hails from the African nation of Rwanda; and 5-9 junior point guard Jaden Lewars is from Toronto.
A roster dominated by international talent was pieced together by Brad Shauf, who arrived at GBA three years ago as associate head coach following a pair of stints as a head coach at Christian schools in Texas. Over the last two seasons, he’s been the head basketball coach and athletic director at the school on the campus of Grace Independent Baptist Church.
The effort to attract international players to GBA falls under what the church calls the “Timothy Project.”
A pamphlet posted online describes the program as an opportunity to bolster the international athletes’ chances of earning a basketball scholarship in the United States.
“Grace Baptist Academy has many significant advantages over other schools,” the pamphlet says. “Due to these advantages you can expect to find yourself playing in front of college coaches as well as promotion of game film and highlights. We strive to help you grow not only in athletics, but also academically and spiritually.”
Grace Baptist had its first basketball team in the early 1970s and played until the program fell dormant after Hurricane Katrina. It was revived in 2009, but GBA didn’t start drawing on international talent until the 2015-16 season when a Serbian player, Strahinja Rajic, showed up on the roster under previous coach Mike Carson.
During the 2020-21 season, the Eagles have started to make their presence known on the Coast by successfully scheduling games against local squads, winning 78-56 at Vancleave on Nov. 20 and playing in Vancleave’s Paul Wallace Classic in December, picking up a 59-36 victory over Stone High on Dec. 3. They also beat Moss Point 65-37 on Dec. 22 in a home game and toppled Class 5A power Laurel 61-54 on the road on Dec. 11.
Shauf believes his squad, which is 17-4, is finally starting to get some recognition as a program on the rise in South Mississippi.
“I don’t think we’re over the hump. We’re still on our way up,” Shauf said. “I was walking through the Ocean Springs crowd last night against Biloxi. I heard people talking about different teams on the Coast and I just kind of listened. They talk more about Biloxi or Harrison Central or Gulfport.
“In order to really establish a presence, we’ll have to play those teams and beat those teams for that legitimacy. At least we’ve got a foot in the door.”
GBA players travel from Australia to Ocean Springs
For the international players who have travel thousands of miles to Ocean Springs to play basketball at a school that usually has a student body of about 60, it’s all about making the adjustment to the American game while earning the attention of college coaches.
How they end up at Grace Baptist usually starts with catching the eye of an American coach who watches them play in their native country.
“One of my coaches back in Australia is from Texas. He has a lot of connections,” said Deakin Pereira, a 6-foot-8 junior forward from Melbourne. “We were talking to different schools and my parents wanted me to go to a Christian school, so my dad decided it was the best place for me.”
Pereira’s first season in the U.S. is going well, averaging 14.5 points and 12.7 rebounds a game.
As for Rawlings, a coach from Oregon noticed him on the court in his native Kigali, which is Rwanda’s capital and largest city. At the time, he stood about 6-7.
“He’s very raw,” Shauf said. “He comes from where basketball is big, but there’s not as much of an opportunity for training there. He was 6-7 when he got here a year and a half ago. He’s now 6-11. He grew 4 inches and gained 40 pounds. He’s still catching up with coordination. That’s why he’s running behind.
“He recently picked up a couple of NAIA schools that are interested.”
While several GBA players have received interest from four-year colleges, only one is committed at the moment — 6-9 senior center Aidan Gardner pledged to Div. II Montevallo in Alabama. He is averaging 11 points and 10.5 rebounds.
Shauf points to Emile Kazeneza, another product of Rwanda, who is averaging 11.2 points and 9.6 rebounds a game for NAIA William Carey in Hattiesburg. As a 6-8 forward, he is hitting 35% of his 3-pointers.
Kazeneza had a big senior season, his lone at Grace Baptist, but couldn’t quite catch on with a Div. I program.
“He had a lot of Div. I interest and we got him into the NCAA eligibility center,” Shauf said. “We had several schools talking to him, but because he got here so late he was basically an unknown. All other coaches have been out in the summer recruiting AAU. He fell through cracks.
“The bottom line is, coaches need to see guys in person. (WCU coach Steve Knight) came out from William Carey with his whole staff. They came twice and the second time he offered Emile. He is now his second-leading rebounder and third-leading scorer.”
As long as players like Kazeneza and Gardner catch on and play at a high level in college, more coaches will show up in Ocean Springs or wherever GBA is playing to see the next international player who shows up.
Grace Baptist offers ‘safe environment’
The school takes seriously the Christian aspect of the players’ experience. The Timothy Project is viewed as another ministry of Grace Independent Baptist Church with a focus on spiritual growth.
Players are expected to attend church services on Wednesday and Sunday.
While on campus, listening to “secular music” is not allowed.
The international players who join the GBA program live in a dorm on the school’s campus that has three bedrooms, including two with over-sized beds for taller players.
The expenses for travel, food, books, tuition and lodging are all covered under the total cost of tuition.
Most high school coaches wrap up practice and head home to be with their family each night, but Shauf is never far from his players.
Shauf’s wife often prepares meals for players.
“My wife, my family and I, we live on campus and share a wall with the dorm,” he said. “There’s a lot of work on our end. They’re not going to do everything they want to do. We have our thumb on them, but we’ll allow them quite a bit of freedom. We’re right down the road from Walmart and Whataburger. To go off campus, they’ll check in with us.
“There’s an understanding that they’ll be in a safe environment.”
The amount of time the players spend together has helped develop a cohesiveness on the court for Shauf’s squad.
“Living together 24/7 in a dorm helps a lot,” Rawlings said. “We have a common desire to play basketball that helps us a lot. Doing everything together builds a chemistry together.”
Pereira says there isn’t much in the way of conflict inside the dorm.
“If there is a fight, we solve it pretty well. We talk like men,” he said. “We’re all pretty much grownups anyways. We’re all living by ourselves. We all have to be mature.”
The challenges of international athletes
Most of the members of the program are older high school students in their final two years of eligibility, but it’s still tough at times to be so far from home.
“They’ve traveled 10,000 miles from friends and family,” Shauf said. “There’s culture shock, but it’s more about home sickness with those guys (from Australia). It depends on how you look at it.
“We had the home sickness thing with several guys this year. What they kind of understand is there are lockdowns going on everywhere else. There are places here that are still open. The availability to play ball is still here.”
While some local coaches have been reluctant to play GBA in the past, Shauf is confident that the program is headed in the right direction and gaining relevance in South Mississippi.
Some wonder whether to lump Grace Baptist Academy in with programs that have popped up in Florida and been labeled “basketball factories” or “diploma mills” to help top D1 prospects and other talented players struggling to qualify academically.
Shauf rejects those critiques.
“If we were truly a basketball factory, we’d be giving out scholarships to every single guy,” he said. “We’d be bringing in Americans that have experience on the AAU and EYBL circuits. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t worry about playing around here. That’s not our market and what we’re trying to do.
“Could it grow into that? Sure, but I don’t think we’d have local interest. We really want the school to grow. We want to get our names out there. Our market is more to kids that are having trouble being seen, and that’s international kids. They can be here and get the exposure they need.
“We’re still all high school kids. I’ve seen some people misrepresent that. Some people say we are a prep school and couple that with a post-grad program. We are straight up all high school kids. We don’t do any funny business bringing in post-graduates to help us win.”
While GBA mostly plays out-of-state competition, the players are anxious to prove themselves against the local basketball powers.
“We’re definitely a hidden gem,” Rawlings said. “GBA, not many people know about us, but they will know us.”
