The Sun Devils continued to successfully address their frontcourt needs ahead of the 2021-22 season with the announcement by Robert Morris forward transfer AJ Bramah who pledged to ASU on Friday afternoon. Arizona State’s newest addition chose the school over Nevada, Western Kentucky, and St. Bonaventure.
Arizona State assistant coach Anthony Coleman reached out to Bramah a few weeks ago. It was a bit deep into Bramah’s recruitment, but the forward saw an appeal to the Sun Devils, noting that he watched several ASU games and was always intrigued by how fast they played.
“(Coleman) just simply said that he loves my motor and my competitiveness and the way I rebound and how I score the ball,” Bramah said. “He feels like I’ll be a perfect piece to continue on with the team.”
Not only that, but Bramah saw an opportunity for growth under head coach Bobby Hurley.
“Being the coach that coach Hurley is, I believe that he will push me. He will push me to my limits, past my limits, whatever you want to call it,” Bramah said. “I feel like coach Hurley will not just make me a better basketball player, but he will make me a better man. I wanted to go somewhere where I wasn’t going to be babied. Where I was going to be pushed and pushed. I feel like I made the right decision for sure.”
The 6-foot-7, 210-pound forward Bramah played 12 games in his senior year for the Colonials who play in the Horizon League and had impressive averages of 21 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, shooting at a 51.1 percent clip scoring at least 17 points in each contest and grabbing double-digit rebounds in half of the contests he played.
His stats this past year improved over his junior season where he averaged 13 ppg and 7.9 rpg. That year the forward Paced the Colonials, with 29 double-figure scoring games, posted eight double-doubles, and scoring in double figures over 23 consecutive games had him posting the fourth-longest streak in program history.
“Robert Morris was great. I was able to grow and develop as a player,” Bramah said. “I had a great coaching staff, great teammates, great support at Robert Morris. I enjoyed my time there, and I just felt like it was time for me to go somewhere else and compete for a championship.”
And he thinks that’s possible at Arizona State. As he was in contact with the Sun Devils recently, he spoke with Marcus Bagley to gain perspective on the situation he was going into. Bramah said those discussions included talking about “making a run in the tournament.”
And though Bramah said the geography of schools wasn’t a big factor in his recruitment; it couldn’t hurt talking with another guy in Bagley who played high school ball in Northern California before heading to Tempe.
Bramah prepped at San Leandro (Calif.) High School and attended Sheridan (Wyoming) College before transferring to Robert Morris in 2019. In 2020 he was voted both All-Northeast Conference Second Team and All-Northeast Conference Tournament Team.
Now he’s headed to ASU, a campus he hasn’t yet stepped foot on but a place he already has good vibes about.
“I’m going on Google and searching up. I’m doing my research,” Bramah said. “Just talking to (the coaches) on the Zoom calls, it felt real, it felt genuine. I felt they weren’t BS or nothing like that. I felt comfortable.”
While he technically has a redshirt year to use, Bramah expected to utilize his last year of eligibility in this upcoming 2021-22 campaign.
Bramah is Arizona State’s sixth addition in the 2021 recruiting cycle and its first transfer player, as he joins signees Justin Rochelin, Will Felton, and Demari Williams, as well as fellow commits Enoch Boakye and Jamiya Neal.
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