AJ Baskerville goes up for a layup during a game with Montreat College. — Cameron Rice Photography

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By Jay Spivey

For the Clemmons Courier

A.J. Baskerville might be one of the unsung heroes of the building blocks for a West Forsyth boys basketball team that has become one of the better programs in North Carolina. 

Now, he’s about to embark on his sophomore season at University of North Georgia after transferring from Montreat College. Before he landed in college he went to an academy in Wilmington and was able to reclassify as a freshman once he went to Montreat last fall. 

“When I graduated high school I went to a prep school, Flight 22,” Baskerville said. “I went there for a year. I didn’t really have too much until one of the last tournaments, Montreat recruited me. I ended up committing there, and went there, did what I was supposed to do, and left there, too.”

In Coach Kevin King’s last season as the head coach at West Forsyth during the 2021-22 season Baskerville was a junior and the team finished 8-17 overall and 3-11 in the Central Piedmont 4-A.

After that season Marlon Brim, who was the head coach at Atkins, was hired to replace King. Baskerville, who was a senior, finished that season averaging 18.4 points and 10 rebounds per game, according to MaxPreps. 

Even with those gaudy stats Baskerville said he received no college offers.

“It made me look at things different,” he said. “And it definitely did put a chip on my shoulder.”

That’s when something clicked for him.

“Colleges didn’t really want to look at me,” Baskerville said. “Honestly, I don’t know why, but I just knew when it was time to prove myself I would.”

It turned out that Flight 22 was his saving grace.

“This prep school found me. I played in a tournament at Myrtle Beach,” Baskerville said. “And I played good against them. They recruited me out of there. He told me, ‘You can take an extra year and come play prep. And it won’t affect you in college or nothing.’ And I did that, and it turned out good.”

Baskerville had to weigh the pros and cons of going to prep school and reclassifying.

“It was a risk for sure because it’s no guarantee with prep,” he said. “You’ve got to really play good for a college to recruit you. So I decided to take a risk and it came out good because I got into college. But it really was a risk.”

While there he had to swallow his pride on the basketball court.

“The season (at Flight 22) was pretty good,” Baskerville said. “I started off, didn’t play too good. I was going through a lot of stuff back home. And I had to move in with my sister and back down to Fayetteville. I didn’t start off too well. I was in my head a lot. Towards the end of the season I picked it up and I was playing really well. And colleges ended up finding me and talking to me.”

In addition to playing basketball, he was facing some off-the-court adversity.

“I tried to take what I was going through in my personal life and put it all on the court,” Baskerville said. “What I was really going through, it was hard. It was real hard times, but I took all of it out on the court, really. And I made something out of nothing.”

Lucky for him, his elder sister, Shakema, who lived in Fayetteville, stepped in to assist him.

“She really gave me a lot of hope,” Baskerville said. “She took me to every single practice I had at Flight 22. She was raising two kids herself. Her husband was in the Army. So, he wasn’t there, and she had to get off work, take me straight to my prep practice and wait for me to get done and pick me up.

“And Wilmington is an hour and 45 minutes. Every single weekend.”

Baskerville said he stayed with his sister in Fayetteville from Thursday through Sunday.

“She would drop me off on a Sunday and come back and pick me up,” he said. “And she did that for a month or two straight. I never missed a practice or anything.”

He still had to keep busy during the rest of the week in Fayetteville.

“I was working with my sister a lot,” Baskerville said. “It was hard for me to practice and stuff. I was shooting on like a goal — I bought a basketball goal so I could have something to play on. It was really no gyms around there. I bought a goal, and I used to go out there and practice a lot. And I was just working and stuff like that. I was shooting outside the house on a goal.”

In addition to practicing on a goal he also had a job.

“I was working in a kitchen at a rest home,” Baskerville said. “I did one online class, but I was focused on making money so I could get to my games and stuff. Because you had to drive to your own games. It was no transportation. 

“I was trying to make a little bit of money to drive to my games.”

According to Baskerville, Flight 22 played mostly against college JV teams.

He had to drive a Dodge Charger to all of his games.

“It wasn’t really reliable, but I had to make it work,” Baskerville said. “It used to run hot on me. I had to pull over. I had to make it work. I had to get to these games. I guess all I really knew was basketball.”

Needless to say, little brother was indebted to big sister.

“That’s like my second mom,” Baskerville said. “She really showed me she believed in me.”

All of the adversity paid off for him.

“Montreat ended up recruiting me,” Baskerville said. “At first they threw me a scholarship offer. My coach told them I could play, but until I got to school I had to prove myself.

“But I got to Montreat and things just took off from there.”

A big burden was taken off Baskerville’s shoulders once Montreat, which is an NAIA school, reached out to him.

“It was a relief for sure because I put in a lot of work to try to get that offer,” he said. “I still remember the day they gave me the scholarship. I was at work and I walked out the building, and they said you’ve got a call. They called me and they told me. It was definitely a relief.”

Once settled in at Montreat, Baskerville, his teammates and the school had to suffer through some adversity. Hurricane Helene, which devastated western North Carolina last fall, swept through the area.

“I didn’t think we were going to have a season and we ended up having one,” he said. “We were bouncing around a lot with practices at different gyms and everything like that. It was a long season, but it was fun.”

Montreat was shut down for a stretch, so students had to get home as best as they could.

“I had to get home on my own, really,” Baskerville said. “I found a man. I hopped in the back of a truck to get back home. My phone was dead. I couldn’t make no calls. Nothing. And I had to find a way home, or I wasn’t going to get home.”

According to him, school was canceled for about a month. The area was cleaned enough to where students could come back to campus.

“I didn’t think we were going to have school anymore because they didn’t have a gym,” Baskerville said. “The gym was torn down to pieces.”

Through it all, the team worked together for one goal.

“We all stuck together. We were like, ‘We’ve got to make this happen,'” Baskerville said. “We were like, ‘We’re going to make history.’ Because we went through so much. And we ended up doing it.”

According to the college, Baskerville averaged 14.7 points and 9.8 rebounds per game, helping the team to a 19-11 record.

“We had a better season than they did last year,” he said. “We had a really good season. We got to play at our gym twice because they fixed it up enough to where we could play in it.”

Following the season, Baskerville was named Freshman of the Year in the Appalachian Athletic Conference. In addition, he was named second-team All-AAC, and first-team All-Defensive Team.

“I had no intentions of leaving, really,” he said. “But I ended up getting Freshman of the Year, and I was on the All-Defensive Team, All-Freshman Team, and (second-team) All-Conference.

“I thought about it and they talked to some people, and they were like, ‘AJ, it’s time to go. You’ve got opportunities, so don’t waste it.'”

The switch flipped in his head at that point.

“I ended up telling my coach, ‘I don’t want to waste this opportunity,'” Baskerville said. “He ended up pushing me towards it. He was like, ‘Yeah, go into the transfer portal.’”

He did enter the transfer portal.

“It was insane,” Baskerville said. “The minute I got in the portal I really couldn’t handle it. I had to get an agent. I just had to have somebody help me out because it was so many coaches calling me and checking on me at one time.

“I had to get an agent and he had to talk to the coaches for me and talk about money and things like that.”

That agent, Rob Peterson, handled all of the grunt work for Baskerville. He also received help from Brittany Cox Hudson, who was the head girls basketball coach at West Forsyth and helped guide the team to the NCHSAA Class 4-A state championship during the 2018-19 season. Cox Hudson coached Baskerville’s sister, Shakira, who played at High Point University and recently graduated. Cox Hudson now is the owner and director of AssistU, which helps players find places to play in college. 

“He talked to the coaches for me,” Baskerville said. “Another person that helped me was Coach Cox. She used to actually work at West. She helped me out a lot. She talked to a lot of coaches for me.”

Cox Hudson’s assistance was invaluable.

“She helped me out a lot,” Baskerville said. “She helped me when I couldn’t get to coaches, or respond to coaches or didn’t know what to say, she helped me know what to say to coaches and respond. She helped me out a lot. I’m really appreciative of her.”

Ultimately, he decided to attend the University of North Georgia, which is in Dahlonega.

“When I went on my visit they showed me a lot of hospitality,” Baskerville said. “I liked the area it was in. And they just showed me, ‘You can play here.’ They showed me a lot of hospitality when I went on my visit. And I think I’ll be around a good group of people.”

Much of what Baskerville’s gone through the past several years might be from what he learned at West Forsyth.

“People may not know this, but I was leaving West,” he said. “I was going to leave West before Coach Brim got there. And I ended up staying.”

According to Baskerville, he was going to transfer to Winston-Salem Christian, much like his sister, Jeanna, did when she transferred from West Forsyth.

“I was going to reclass my junior year,” he said. “And I ended up staying at West. And I was like, ‘We’ve got a new coach. I’m going to believe in this coach.’ 

“And Coach Brim, he really showed me a different side of basketball. I look at basketball way different because of him, because he really changed my mind in basketball. I’m glad I stayed and really stuck to it with West Forsyth.”