Former State College forward Drew Friberg is a top five 3-pointer shooter in the nation
Former State College boys basketball player Drew Friberg is having his strongest collegiate season yet after transferring from Princeton to Belmont.
Friberg is tied for 14th in the country for made 3-point field goals per game (3.3) and he sits at No. 4 for 3-point percentage (46.6%). The 6-foot-6, 210-pound forward holds averages of 11.7 points per game on a 48.2% field goal percentage, 4.1 per game and 1.3 assists per game.
His teammate Ben Sheppard, a 6-foot-6 senior guard and the leading scorer on the team, immediately recognized what the Princeton transfer had to offer. With the way the guard has been able to cut to the basket and draw opponents with him, and find Friberg in the corner for 3-point shots, there has been smooth growth in their on-court chemistry. It’s part of the senior forward’s game that drew his teammates to him over the season.
“When we first got the news that we were gonna get Drew out of the transfer portal, we were obviously super excited,” Sheppard said. “The way he can shoot the ball, the way he spreads the floor and affects the game with his basketball IQ, I knew that he fit in perfectly with our program and how we do things here.”
Sheppard wasn’t able to initially meet Friberg when the he came to Belmont on a recruiting visit. He did, however, receive word of a player that was his same height and who could drain 3-point shots in a multitude of ways.
Pull ups. Catch-and-shoot. On the move. Swish.
It was all a part of the legend that Friberg was building for himself, with his future teammates in awe of his ability to shoot the ball from long-range.
“My first practice with him, I walked onto the floor and saw Drew shooting it and I was kind of amazed,” Sheppard said. “I didn’t see him miss that whole entire day. He’s just super good and it’s a good feeling to have someone who wanted to play with us that shoots the ball the way he does.”
Belmont sits at fourth in a hotly contested Missouri Valley Conference at 18-9 overall and 11-5 within conference play, tied with Indiana State, and is just one game back of the first-place lead, as of Monday. The Bruins are in their first season in the conference, after playing 10 years in the Ohio Valley Conference.
And Friberg is at the forefront of the team’s surge, Belmont head coach Casey Alexander said.
“He has fit seamlessly,” Alexander said. “You don’t take one-year graduate transfers if you don’t think that they can step right in and play like they’ve been there the whole time, but you do never know. We’ve been really pleased from the beginning — just from an off-the-floor character and on-the-floor basketball IQ standpoint, he fits. He fits our team perfectly. The results come from how good of a fit he is.”
Jumping into college ball
After finishing up in State College in the spring of 2018, Friberg entered Princeton with a chip on his shoulder and an urge to impress his coaches right off of the bat. Princeton head coach Mitch Henderson was excited to get the former Little Lion into his program.
“Drew is the most consistent person,” Henderson said. “He’s always stayed the same — he’s all about the team, he’s a pleasant and happy person to be around. His skill level in high school was similar to his skill level now, an excellent shooter, his knowledge of the game, an underrated scorer, passer — just all around, he brings so much to a team and a game. He was all of those things for us.”
It came with some struggles as he averaged two points per game on 31.8% shooting as a freshman and his time was negligible — averaging 6.9 minutes per game during the 2018-2019 campaign.
“It was a tough transition, just going from the high school to the college level,” Friberg said. “The speed was different, it was just a higher level and so it took me a little bit of time to get used to that. I had some good moments my freshman year during a couple of games where I made some good shots, but then they’re also games I didn’t play at all. So, I was up and down (and) just trying to stay as even as possible. It kind of motivated me for my sophomore year where I where I got a nice role for myself off the bench. That’s where I really started to feel like I I got my footing at Princeton going into my sophomore year.”
COVID-19 later rocked the world with his 2019-20 season in the rear view mirror. He waited for over a year to suit up for the Tigers and missed out on a season of eligibility in 2020-21.
Going back to his roots
Every summer, Friberg comes back to State College to play pickup basketball with a number of friends and players in the area. Among those is State College head coach Brian Scholly, who coached Friberg’s brothers Johnny and Cole.
Friberg came back to State College to be an assistant coach during the first semester of the 2020-21 season while he couldn’t compete in the Ivy League. He took classes at home with Ivy League campuses shuttering during the school year.
The experience of having an accomplished player return to aid his team during a time of uncertainty meant a great deal to Scholly.
“The player he is, is obviously very special and just a product of the work that he’s put in,” Scholly said. “There’s not a harder worker than he is. More importantly, to be (a) representative of our program that he is as a person greatly outweighs the player. Everywhere he’s gone, he’s the nicest guy in the room. He’s the most humble guy that walks in the room too and he’s got every reason not to be because of how accomplished he is in the program.”
Friberg drives forward in basketball
The forward entered the pandemic as a sophomore and returned from it a senior, looking to have the best season of his career in 2021-22. Once Friberg returned to Princeton in the spring of 2021, he found a leadership role. He and the other juniors took over control of workouts outside of the view of coaches and media members. There he could carve out his voice as a soon-to-be senior.
Friberg did just that, averaging a career-high in points (9.3), 3-point percentage (39.7%) and 3-point field goals attempted (2.5). The graduate student came to Belmont after finishing his degree in political science and graduating with honors from Princeton. With the Ivy League not hosting a season in 2020-21, graduate students not being able to play in the league, nor the COVID bonus year of eligibility being honored, Princeton coaches reached out to Belmont to endorse Friberg for an opportunity to play with the Bruins.
“I loved the staff at Princeton,” Friberg said. “They were great to me, they supported me and when it was time to leave, they were the first ones to help me. ... I gave him a list and Belmont was one and they would call and reach out. They were the ones who reached out to the Belmont coaches and it went from there and (Belmont) was interested.”
It is an unusual situation that a team advocates on a player’s behalf when they transfer. With Friberg not having the option to go back to Princeton, Alexander still had to figure out how to make the fit work. He had no scholarships to give initially. Then, two Belmont players unexpectedly entered the transfer portal.
“From Princeton’s standpoint, we might not have been aggressive enough at the very beginning,” Alexander said. “Once we locked in on what our needs were, we knew that he would be a great fit and give us a piece that we were pretty clearly missing. We needed another scorer and could put pressure on the defense. We needed a guy like that.”
What the future holds
Scholly and Alexander both think that Friberg’s playing days don’t have to be over after Belmont.
“Leagues at any level are looking for guys that can shoot and he knows how to shoot,” Scholly said. “He knows how to shoot on the move, catch-and-shoot, shoot off of dribbles — he rises up and he can put it in.”
“Shooters inevitably find their way onto the floor,” Alexander said. “It’s just a weapon that’s hard to come by. So, that opens the door for him.”
Even if he went into business, Henderson believes that Friberg will be successful.
“Whatever he decides to do next, the way he is and the way he treats people, what he is as a teammate, that’s what he’ll be as a business leader,” Henderson said. “That’s what I would look for if I was running a company or if I was looking for employees, I’d look for someone that would bring a lot to the table and that’s Drew.”
As for Friberg, he’s not entirely sure when his basketball playing days will end. He’s in the midst of an MBA program at Belmont and is prepared to go into business. Playing professional basketball would be a goal of his, but it’s not the end-all-be-all.
He still wouldn’t balk at a chance to possibly play in the NBA one day, where 3-point shooting is in vogue.
“I don’t know about the NBA — that’d be pretty tough, but there would be some opportunities for me overseas,” Friberg said. “I’m definitely going to take a look at it. It’s been a dream of mine since I was a little kid to play professionally. I think it would be a cool opportunity, but I’m really trying to focus on the season right now. Once the season is over, I’ll see what my options are.”
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