May 16, 2007

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -Andrew Brackman walked into North Carolina State's practice gym and saw two ex-teammates shooting hoops. For a moment, he missed being a basketball player.

"I've been growing up my whole life playing that game, and all of a sudden, I had to hang it up for a little bit," Brackman said.

He knows he could've given new coach Sidney Lowe's team a presence in the low post and taken part in huge upsets of rivals North Carolina and Duke. Instead, the 6-foot-10 junior walked away from the hardwood to pursue a baseball career, and is wrapping up his first full season on the N.C. State diamond with an eye on next month's draft.

Despite a statistically sub-par year - he's 6-4 in 13 starts with a 3.81 ERA - Brackman insists he has no regrets about spurning hoops for hardball.

"I still stick by my decision of laying off a year of basketball, and I think it's definitely helped me as a pitcher," Brackman said. "I'm very young to the game of baseball, you could say. Now, playing a full season, I definitely learned a lot of stuff this season, what I can and can't do in the weight room, with my arm. It's definitely helped me out as a baseball player."

It could soon pay off for Brackman, considered one of the top prospects in the draft pool. He's raw, but with a 99-mph fastball and the imposing frame of a power forward, he has the potential to blossom into an imposing right-handed power pitcher.

"He's still got some developing to do," Wolfpack coach Elliott Avent said. "He has learned so much this year and gone through so much this year that it's going to help him more than he has any idea. ... He is an unpolished stone in a lot of ways, but in a lot of ways, you're talking about a polished stone. This is a guy that could go to the big leagues right now and get people out. Is it best for his longevity? In my opinion, without a doubt, no."

Focusing on baseball forced Brackman to change the way he trains. No more late-night powerlifting sessions - those made him too bulky, costing him flexibility in his arm and zip from his fastball. Instead, his workouts focus on his lower body, so he can generate a stronger leg push when he winds, kicks and delivers.

"It's two different worlds - I know now that I can't go in the weight room at night and try and look like a basketball player," Brackman said.

At times during his first two seasons in Raleigh, Brackman made switching sports look easy. He rushed to join the baseball team in 2005 and '06 shortly after Herb Sendek's basketball team was eliminated from the NCAA tournament.

He was 4-0 with a 2.09 ERA as a freshman, and the next year a stress fracture in his left hip he got playing basketball cut short his season in late April after going 1-3 in seven starts with a 6.35 ERA. Brackman healed and returned to form in the Cape Cod League that summer, winning his only decision with the Orleans Cardinals before joining Team USA in August.

Two months later, he announced that he would sit out basketball to focus on baseball.

But he always kept an eye on the basketball team.

When Brackman watched the Wolfpack play he almost always eschewed courtside seats, preferring to hide out in the relative anonymity of the RBC Center's upper deck with his baseball teammates because "as a player, I always hated when people asked me for tickets."

His only court time came after N.C. State knocked off North Carolina in February, and Brackman and fellow pitcher Eric Surkamp were among the first to storm the floor in celebration.

Still, he remains dedicated to baseball, certain that his professional future is more promising on the mound than on the court. He's being advised by agent Scott Boras, and enters the draft with no expectations and "no clue" which team will select him.

"At the beginning of the season, (I wavered) kind of a little bit - it was kind of hard and tough to go the games and watch," Brackman said. "But I definitely stand by my decision, and I think I made the right one."