Signing his letter of intent to his new home, senior  Jarrett Cox-Bradley chose to continue his basketball career at Barton Community College over other schools recruiting him on Friday, April 10th.

Barton will be a good fit for the school record holder for most points scored in a season.

“When we (my family and I) went to visit there I connected with the coaches, the teammates are all cool, and I felt like they wanted me there,” Cox-Bradley said. “And also, I’m coming in with a good chance to start and get a lot of playing time my freshman year.”

Barton, located in Great Bend, Kansas, is located in the heart of Kansas and isn’t near any larger cities. Great Bend is located around 7 hours away from Parkway Central, and Barton’s head coach Craig Fletchall made the trek to Central from Barton for Cox-Bradley’s signing ceremony and the all-star game that he participated in that night. Fletchall is excited about what Cox-Bradley can do for his program.

“(I heard about Jarrett from the) Central Missouri coaches back in October of November when our season started,” Fletchall said. “They had Jarrett at a summer camp and they really liked him and they knew we had no guards coming back, we have 5 sophomore guards graduating, and so regressively I looked for guys who can score and make up the slack for our guys. My 3 transfer guards were all-conference so we needed someone with some maturity and good work ethic that’s going to step in and play and then we just stayed in contact with him and I got to come out and watch him play in the playoffs and it was real impressive the way he handles himself. We brought him out for a school visit and his mom and grandma liked the place and the rest is history. We are really happy to have him.”

Community colleges/junior colleges are referred to as a ‘JUCO’ and they offer up a different style of learning and basketball play than a traditional four-year institution. JUCO’s are two-year schools that are used as a platform for players to eventually get to play for a four-year school their junior and senior years after they graduate from JUCO. Cox-Bradley likes the concept of the JUCO route and how it can benefit him.

“It is a way to make sure that my grades stay on track,” Cox-Bradley said. “I need to work on getting stronger, getting in better physical shape. Just working hard. I think that is the perfect thing for me to do at Barton because I’m in a small town, there isn’t really much to do besides basketball and books so I will be in the gym probably every day getting stronger and working on my skill set and hopefully from there my game can continue to grow.”

While Cox-Bradley thinks his game will improve through his time at Barton, Fletchall thinks he will benefit from increased exposure.

“He had some options coming out of high school,” Fletchall said. “And the thing is, if we roll the dice and play our cards right then he’ll have more offers coming out of JUCO. Again, it’s a stepping stone and it’s a good form to come out and work on your game. It opens up a whole different level of contacts.”

Fletchall thinks there is a reason Cox-Bradley didn’t have even more options out of high school.

“You know, people know him in the city, but now you get out in the midwest and play and it opens up some eyes,” Fletchall said. “Talent wise, he is there, work ethic is obviously a plus, but he just needs to get a little more exposure. I think sometimes big city kids are overlooked because there are so many players. But now you get out there right away coming into our league as one of our incoming freshman it gives him a little bit of hype already.”

Cox-Bradley is getting ready right now so he can be prepared for when he arrives on campus this summer.

“From now until I step foot on campus I’m going to work on getting in shape,” Cox-Bradley said. “I took too long of a break off after basketball season but these last two weeks I’ve been on the track every day working on legs, hitting the stairs. I’ve got to start getting in a gym to start working on my ball handling and shooting. But more than anything I want to make sure that I am in great shape because I think I have a good skill set, I just want to be in better shape and get stronger before I go in.”