Miles Brewster went from lockdown defender to heart and soul of BU men’s basketball. He’s back for one final year
Head coach Joe Jones says he's one of the best leaders the program's ever had. And he's worked for everything he's gotten.
BOSTON — Miles Brewster sprints over to the right side wing and waits for a pass from Michael McNair, who stays in the far left corner. He has no difficulties getting to this spot. He’s watched and participated in this exact transition drill several times over the past five years. What Brewster doesn’t see often is a pass like the one McNair throws to him. It’s a picture-perfect toss — a cross-court heave that somehow lands right in Brewster’s hands. The graduate guard dribbles the ball once. He takes a single step back and launches the ball toward the rim. Swish.
A gigantic smile covers the graduate guard’s face. Not because of the shot he just made, but because of the way it got to him.
“That was a great pass bro!” Brewster shouts to McNair. “Holy shit!”
It takes no more than one game or practice to figure out who leads the Boston University men’s basketball team. Brewster is the player who commonly leads stretching drills. He’s the guard head coach Joe Jones trusts to run plays. He’s the player others are most likely to accept advice from, the player who makes everyone around him smile, think and listen.
He’s earned that respect, too. Last year, Brewster finished his senior season with averages of 10.8 points, 3.8 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.5 steals while shooting 43.2 percent from the field and 40.7 percent from 3. Those numbers earned him a spot on the All-Patriot League second team and the Patriot League All-Defensive team, and his hard work and success in the classroom placed him on the conference’s academic all-league team. Ahead of his final season in 2024-25, he made the Preseason All-Patriot League team and hopes to lead his Terriers to the March Madness spot they all covet.
That won’t be easy. It especially won’t be easy for Brewster, whose status as a team leader and co-captain means that an entire season can be dictated by his performance. That doesn’t rattle Brewster, though. He’s grown used to the increased responsibility.
“I feel like each year, I’ve just become more and more comfortable in that role,” Brewster says. “Now it feels almost second-nature to me.”
This is not a role that Brewster accepts with apathy. It’s a role he cherishes and embraces, a role fueled by a love for his sport and a desire to win.
“That’s a role he values,” associate head coach Mike Quinn says. “He understands the importance of it, that championship teams are led by their players.”
Now that he’s entering his fifth season, Brewster is well aware of the influence he has on his team. Earning the voice that he possesses now serves as the culmination of an arduous journey, which involved long hours in the gym, a devotion to his passion and a trust in his gut just as much as his heart.
But this journey did not start at Case Gym. It didn’t even start in Boston. Brewster’s journey to earn the faith of an entire Division I basketball team started in Connecticut several years ago, during a time when he felt alone.
The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut is a widely-respected boarding school. It boasts a 100% college acceptance rate and once graduated TIME Magazine founder Henry Luce and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. The school offers students a lot, but it could not offer Brewster the happiness his hometown, Brooklyn, gave him. He slept every night in a bed hundreds of miles away from the friends he loved and trusted. He couldn’t visit any of the places that gave him comfort as a kid. It was obvious to Brewster that he was far away from home, both physically and emotionally. He wanted to go back. Maybe he wouldn’t feel so lonely.
There was one thing that felt like home, though. Basketball is too ubiquitous of a sport for anyone to be truly isolated from it, including Brewster. He had easy access to Fowle Gym as a member of his school’s basketball team, and he would frequent this gym often and lose all track of time there. Basketball was not much more than a hobby for Brewster when he first arrived in Lakeville. Every shot Brewster took was for his love of the game, one of the few loves he could take with him to Connecticut.
“I was like, ‘You know what? I’m away from my friends, I’m away from the place, the city that I love,” Brewster says. “I might as well just really focus on basketball.”
The more shots Brewster took, the more basketball began to light up his heart. At a certain point, the sport was no longer just an outlet for him. It became a sport he saw himself continuing to get better at. Scouts started noticing, too. It wasn’t rare for Brewster to leave his team’s closing huddle and be stopped by a college basketball scout, who would invite him to their campus for an official visit.
“That’s when it hit me,” Brewster says. “I was like, ‘Oh wow. I can actually sort of like, do something or get offers, scholarships,’ and then that just changed my whole mind frame.”
Soon, Brewster started getting those offers. BU wasn’t the first to do so — its offer was the sixth or seventh Brewster received — but it was definitely among the schools most eager to roster him. Head coach Joe Jones fell in love with Brewster’s high motor and competitiveness on Hotchkiss’ court, and only grew more infatuated once he started talking with him.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, this guy is going to love it here,’” Jones says. “Because that’s the kind of school we have. We have an amazing school in this unbelievable city full of places to tap into in terms of knowledge and experiences.”
Brewster did not agree at first. When Jones first called Brewster, too many other schools were on his mind for the guard to take BU seriously. But Jones didn’t stop calling. And there was a certain charisma to Jones that appealed to Brewster.
Maybe BU wasn’t a school to write off.
Brewster did some research. The school’s standing as a premier academic institution opened his eyes and convinced him to take an official visit. Not only did he feel like the team and its coaches accepted him as one of their own, but the city atmosphere felt similar to his home in Brooklyn. He narrowed his list of schools down to four: Yale, Brown, Bucknell and BU. All four schools had aspects that appealed to Brewster, but only one offered the location, the education and the camaraderie with its coaches he was looking for in his next home.
“All of those things kind of coalesced and made BU the right decision,” Brewster says.
He didn’t play much in his first season. Most freshmen don’t. So, he often stayed at the gym after practice and pestered his coaches with questions.
“His focus has always been on growth as a player, and I think that’s really paid off for him over these four years here,” Quinn says.
Brewster did his best to eliminate every negative aspect from his game that season. He started to flash those results as a sophomore. The amount of games he played doubled and he even started in seven, building a reputation as a scrappy, suffocating perimeter defender.
But more impressive than his defense was his insatiable work ethic, which led to improvements he still hasn’t finished making.
“He’s really improved on his skill,” Jones says. “He has improved his body, and then his understanding of the game has evolved.”
Brewster shined even brighter in his junior year. As more spots opened up, he played in 32 games and started in 10 while cracking 40 percent shooting from the field for the first time in his collegiate career.
“There’s nothing that’s been handed to me here,” Brewster says. “I’ve worked really, really hard here, and so I think that they can see that, you know what I mean?”
BU lost to Army in the quarterfinals of the Patriot League tournament, the final game for longtime teammates Walter Whyte, Jonas Harper and Ethan Brittain-Watts. Someone needed to fill the starting spots those mainstays left behind. The burden fell on Brewster, one of the only experienced players on a virtually brand new roster.
The senior guard picked up that burden and carried it across the Patriot League.
Brewster elevated his defense and solidified his reputation as one of the fiercest defensive guards in the conference, averaging 1.5 steals a game. But Brewster’s biggest leaps came on offense. He improved from an average 3-point shooter in his junior season (34.1 percent) to a sniper from long distance (40.7 percent), and he displayed real skill as a facilitator. The Terriers no longer needed Brewster to be a stopper, they needed him to be everything, and he delivered.
“He takes years off my life,” Jones says, “But he made it up with the fact that if he wasn’t here, the team would have taken more years off my life.”
The bright and talented guard truly became an indispensable part of his team, a storybook conclusion to a journey that began with only a glimmer of potential four years before.
“If you watch Miles as a freshman,” Quinn says, “or you go back and watch clips to what he looked like then to what he looks like as a senior and what he’ll look like as a fifth-year, I think everybody would be impressed with the development he’s made.”
Brewster’s tale with the Terriers hasn’t finished though. Now in his fifth and final season, Jones says he’s never looked better. A big year is likely coming, but Brewster values a role which allows him to impact winning and inspiring his teammates more than anything else.
“I don’t need to be MVP,” Brewster says. “I don’t need to be [the] leading scorer, nothing like that. I want to be a big part of our winning.”
The impeccable leadership that filling this role requires is a trait that not many people possess. It can only be seen in a select few places around the world, and Case Gym has been one of those places for the last five years.
Brewster’s all-time favorite film is “La Haine.” It’s a French thriller directed by Mathieu Kassovitz that first hit theaters in 1995. It tells the story of three young men who disagree on how to respond to their friend’s assault and hospitalization at the hands of the police. One of the characters seeks revenge for what happened. Another argues that violence won’t nurse their friend back to health. It sends a clear message of “hate breeds hate,” which resonated with viewers and critics alike.
Those viewers and critics still laud “La Haine” today. The film and its creators won several awards when it came out, and Oscar-winning actor Cillian Murphy even called it a masterpiece. Brewster agrees. He could sing its praises for hours if given the chance. He watched “La Haine” for the first time when he was a sophomore, but the film did little more than pique his interest at the time. It wasn’t until he rewatched it near the end of his junior season that it rose to the top of his favorites list and shattered the worldview he once had.
“It kind of just blew my mind,” Brewster says. “It was kind of just like a ‘Holy shit’ kind of moment.”
There’s a special place in Brewster’s heart for outstanding movies. He studies the art of producing and writing films at BU and has directed multiple short films during his time at the school. It’s a passion he takes after his parents, both of whom are documentary filmmakers. They specialize in films with a strong focus on social justice, which requires loving others and wanting the best for everyone. Their son grew up around those values, which his parents instilled at a young age.
Those qualities were further fostered during Brewster’s early education years. From kindergarten to eighth grade, Brewster attended a school with roots in Quakerism, a sect of Christianity that emphasizes the importance of peace, justice and equality. Brewster learned how to love and unite others while he learned long division. Through his schooling and the influence from his parents, he developed a strong desire to impact people in a positive way.
“How that will look when I’m an adult, I don’t know,” Brewster says. “I’m figuring it out, but it’s definitely important to me.”
Right now, that passion for impacting others manifests itself on Case Gym’s court. It’s been blatant ever since his second season at BU, when he often found himself directing older teammates. Sometimes, he got a little too carried away. Jones would tell his sophomore to act his age and stop telling others what to do. He couldn’t help it. Someone had to take charge.
“It would always upset me when other people weren’t vocal,” Brewster says. “Especially the older guys. I was like,‘That’s your job.’”
As Brewster grew older, becoming a vocal leader became his job. Now, he welcomes the added responsibility. He makes a point to listen to his teammates and to criticize them with nothing but respect. With every word, direction or play call, Brewster prioritizes being selfless. He never tries to force the spotlight on himself or put any of his teammates in inferior positions to him.
His teammates notice that selflessness, as well as how much affection their coach has whenever he speaks of his co-captain. Brewster leads by example, too, working his tail off in every drill and encouraging his teammates to do the same.
“They just see his everyday ability,” Quinn says. “His everyday competitiveness is huge. That’s a trait that’s hard to come by.”
But his leadership won’t be at Case Gym forever. Very soon, Brewster will leave BU and begin his life after college. The defensive intensity and passion Brewster brings will be gone. The most excited voice on the court will have to come from someone else. A player who’s given his heart and soul to BU basketball for half a decade won’t be on its roster.
It’s tough for anyone to accept. But it’s toughest for Brewster, who appears to hold back tears as he speaks about one day departing the team he loves.
“It makes me emotional thinking about leaving,” Brewster says. “Because it’s not something that’s easily replicable.”
When Brewster does leave, someone will need to replace Brewster’s leadership. There are a plethora of viable candidates. The Terriers have several young, talented players who learned under Brewster who could become BU’s next leaders once he’s gone.
“I think the other guys have grown and they have learned, ‘Okay, that could be me one day. I could be having that role that Miles has in terms of being a leader and also being one of the better players,’” Jones says.
Brewster’s own BU tenure started off similarly to theirs. That’s part of the reason why they respect him so much. Who’s to say their careers can’t end the way Brewster’s did?
“There’s nothing that’s been handed to me here,” Brewster says. “I’ve worked really, really hard here, and so I think that they can see that, you know what I mean?”
Replacing Brewster will not be easy. Not in the slightest. Few players have ever put on a BU jersey with the same pride, radiance and soul that Brewster has done before every game over the last five years.
“Out of all the leaders I’ve had,” Jones says, “He had one of the biggest impacts on the team that I’ve ever seen.”