Perkiomen School’s Brant Byers helped Miami of Ohio go on a 31-game streak

Basketball seemed to come naturally for Brant Byers.

Growing up, the Chambersburg native recalls being the tallest kid in his class, and throughout grade school, he got used to being the best player on the team — or “even if I wasn’t very good, the tall kid always still made the team.”

But when Byers made the switch from Scotland Campus, a prep sports program that shut down in 2023, to Perkiomen School in Montgomery County for his senior year, he quickly realized that he wasn’t the go-to guy anymore.

“Perkiomen was a wide awakening for me,” said Byers, now a 6-foot-8 sophomore wing at Miami of Ohio. “Playing with guys that are a lot bigger, stronger, and better than me.

“I didn’t start a game on that team, so it was difficult at first, just trying to establish what role I had, what I can have, and what I can have confidence in doing. But even my freshman year of college, I would say that it helped me a ton, because it’s kind of the same experience.”

After deciding against a postgraduate year at Perkiomen, Byers redshirted his first year in Oxford, Ohio, and saw game action last year off the bench. This season, however, Byers has emerged in a starting role during Miami’s most successful season.

The RedHawks finished the regular season with a historic 31-0 record, becoming the first Division I team since 2021 to enter its conference tournament undefeated. On Thursday, eighth-seeded UMass upset Miami, 87-83, in the Mid-American Conference quarterfinals, but the RedHawks could still receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

“That’s definitely a goal that we’ve set for ourselves,” said Byers, who finished with a team-high 17 points on Thursday. “But we’ve just got to take it a day at a time — not to get ahead of ourselves, because we really haven’t proven anything yet.”

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Despite the loss, it doesn’t take away what Byers — and his team — have accomplished this year.

After primarily serving as a reserve, averaging 8.4 points and 17.6 minutes, Byers spent the offseason putting on weight and building his muscle. A spot opened up in the starting lineup, giving him an opportunity to see more minutes.

He has started every game, averaging 14.2 points, making 39.8% of his three-pointers. But to find his place, Byers had to be OK with not being the star player and learning from those around him first. His experience at Perkiomen prepared him for that transition.

Byers played on a Perkiomen team with other standouts, including Thomas Haugh (Florida), Gabe Tanner (Florida Gulf Coast), Bobby Rosenberger III (Nova Southeastern), and Macon Emory (Delaware).

He helped the Panthers earn their first Pennsylvania Independent Schools title in program history in 2023. But his biggest takeaway from his lone year at the boarding school was allowing himself to make mistakes.

“Just fighting through any adversity,” Byers said. “You can make mistakes during games or in practices. I would say at Perkiomen that same thing happened, and it kind of prepared me in a way for what college would be like.”

Miami has the chance to earn an NCAA Tournament berth for the first time since 2007, when it last won the MAC tournament and earned an automatic bid.

Maybe the RedHawks’ tournament drought will be over come Selection Sunday. If anything, their perfect regular season proves that this program is reaching new territory, and Byers has two more years to be part of it.

“If anyone would have said last year that we’re going to do this, we probably wouldn’t have even believed it,” he said. “It’s been so much fun just having the games be sellouts. I think we’ve had five or six games now be sellouts. ... We’ve enjoyed it.”