Defense brings out the beast in Warren standout Ellis

There are two python snakes that reside in the bedroom of Branden Ellis. They eat dead rats, purchased frozen from the pet store.

"They eat only once a month though," Ellis said with a laugh. "So it's not that bad."

Ellis has other exotic animals, too - turtles, iguanas, lizards, geckos.

"And my dad and I built a pond in our backyard, and we have a bunch of koi fish in there," Ellis said. "I just love animals."

Ellis, a senior at Warren, the leading scorer (17 ppg) of the boys basketball team, and one of the top players in Lake County this season, is also an avid fisherman.

Yes, fisherman.

"If I could, I would fish every day," said Ellis, a 6-foot-3 point guard. "I've got millions of lures, and lure boxes under my bed. I'll go to AAU tournaments in the summer and if I know there are going to be ponds nearby, I'll pack my rod in my bag and go fishing in between games.

"It's funny because a lot of people look at me and wouldn't think I'd be a fisherman."

Ellis is full of surprises like that, starting with his love of basketball.

That's kind of a surprise right off the top.

A member of one of Warren's most successful athletic families, Ellis bucked tradition and made basketball his primary sport.

Track is actually what the Ellis family is known for.

Dad Morris and Mom Mary were both track stars at Eastern Michigan University. Morris was a decathlete and Mary was a sprinter.

Older sister Brittny, who re-wrote the girls track record books at Warren and won multiple IHSA state sprinting titles, is currently on a full-ride track scholarship at the University of Miami in Florida. She has been a qualifier for the NCAA national meet over her college career.

"I do track too," Branden Ellis said. "I got seventh in state last year in high jump (6-foot-7). I've been doing track with my sister since I was really young. It's the foundation for every sport I've ever done. It helps with quickness, and jumping.

"But I really love basketball. That's kind of my thing. And I've been following Warren basketball for a really long time."

Ellis, who is hoping to play basketball in college and is getting plenty of interest from recruiters, can remember going downstate to Peoria to watch Warren play in the IHSA state finals in 2011, when he was about 10 years old.

"We ended up losing to Simeon in the state championship game," Ellis said. "That's when Darius Paul and Nathan Boothe were playing for Warren. It was a lot of fun watching them."

Little did Ellis know then that he would eventually be held in the same regard as Paul, Boothe, Paul's older brother Brandon, who now plays with the San Antonio Spurs, Ceola Clark and other Warren legends.

And he would be in this company not just because he's a great player, but because he's also a great defensive player.

Surprise! (At least that is a surprise to him.)

When longtime head coach Chuck Ramsey was at Warren, he made defense the focal point of the program.

Year in and year out, Warren was known for its suffocating, stingy defense.

A tradition that was born out of that defensive pride was the "Black Jersey." Each week since the Ramsey Era, managers and coaches at Warren have tracked the defensive contributions of each player on the team in both practices and games. Players get points for things like deflections, blocks, steals, charges, forced turnovers and five-second calls.

At the end of each week, the points are added up and announced to the team and the players then vote on who should be awarded the coveted "Black Jersey."

The winner gets to wear the jersey to practice for the next week.

Ellis has won the jersey more than 10 times over his three-year varsity career.

And he's been prolific in his defensive prowess, tallying more points (the players at Warren call them marks) in one day (19) than any other player in program history. More than even Brandon Paul, who won Illinois' Mr. Basketball award before going on to star at Illinois and then eventually earning a spot in the NBA this season.

"I've been told that the most marks any other player has gotten in one day has been 14," Ellis said. "I'm pretty proud about that. The Black Jersey...it's such a highly coveted award. This is the same exact jersey that Brandon Paul wore, that Ceola Clark wore. You can see the stitching where rips have been repaired. Wearing that same jersey really means a lot to me."

For Ellis, the jersey also shows him how far he's come in basketball, how he's surprised even himself with his ability to play tough defense.

"When I was younger, I wasn't very good at defense at all," Ellis said. "I never really gave my full effort on defense. I always thought of myself as a scorer, a 3-point shooter.

"So I would always get put on the other team's worst offensive player. And other teams would try to pick on me defensively.

"But as I got older, I realized how important defense can be to winning. And how you can turn defense into offense. I got stronger and faster and I started to jump higher, so that made me a better defender, but it was also more of a will to work harder at defense that made me a better defender."

Now, Ellis is a complete player.

This week, he has been recovering from a hyper-extended knee that he suffered during a Martin Luther King tournament game last weekend. But when he is healthy, and he is hoping to be back in the rotation on Saturday against Zion-Benton, Ellis has his hands in everything for the Blue Devils.

Not only does he lead the team in scoring, he also is among the team leaders in assists (2.5 apg) and steals (2.5 spg). For good measure, he also has 10 dunks on the season and had 4 in one game, against Elk Grove.

"Branden is just a phenomenal kid and a great player for us," Warren coach Jon Jasnoch said. "He's going to be a great pick-up for any (college). He's taken over so many games for us because he can do so much. He can get to the basket, he can finish in transition, he can elevate and get rebounds, he gets his hand on a lot of balls defensively. He's become a great defender and it's great when your top player places such an importance on defense. That kind of carries over to everyone.

"Branden is just really poised, too. Just so even-keel. I think he gets that from all the fishing he does."

Ellis had to reel himself in recently in the college recruiting process.

He'd verbally committed to the University of Indianapolis about three months ago, but recently de-committed because he felt like he had made the decision too fast and wanted more time to look at colleges.

He currently is getting strong interest from schools in the Ivy League (he's got a 3.8 grade point average) and the Patriot League and has a full-ride offer on the table from Division II Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida, which could be the perfect place for him to study about marine life, and to fish.

"I love to salt-water fish," Ellis said. "When I go visit my sister down in Miami, that's all I ever do. I've been thinking that majoring in something like environmental science and biology would be intriguing. Palm Beach also has a major in marine biology, which would be cool."

Ah, but what about a home for the snakes? Could Palm Beach accommodate that, too?

"I've already asked them what the policy is for pets in the dorms," Ellis said with a laugh. "I don't think they've ever had anyone ask that before. I'm still waiting for them to get back to me on that."

Just wait until they find out the pets are snakes.

Surprise!

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

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