Evan Kupferberg Sets His Sites on Division I Basketball

Evan Kupferberg. While his Jewish name may not strike fear into your heart, his size and statistics certainly should:

He stands at six foot six, two-hundred and twenty pounds and wears size fifteen sneakers. As a freshman on Varsity, he scored 10.4 points per game and grabbed 9.3 rebounds per game. As a sophomore, he scored 13.5 points per game and grabbed 10.9 rebounds a game, good enough to average a double-double. As a junior, to date, he averages 18.3 points per game and 11.8 rebounds per game.

Evan lives with his parents in Boca Raton, Florida. He has a fifteen year old brother, Landon, who currently plays on the Spanish River High School Junior Varsity team. Evan attended the B’nai Israel Hebrew School in Boca Raton. The support of his family is extremely important to him and he credits his father for giving him the drive and the motivation to constantly improve. “My dad pushes me to the max everyday because he wants me to be the best. I don’t know where I’d be without him,” Evan says.

He is a good student with a strong interest in a career in business and marketing. His father, Barry, says that Evan’s love for basketball and competition began with the Boca Hoops Recreational League program in their home town. Evan holds the record at Boca Hoops for being the youngest player to dunk in a game at age fourteen. Evan was always ahead of his peers growing up, but he has stayed humble and recognizes that it is the incessant hard work that will allow him to continue to progress. He says, “As I get older everyone catches up, I have to work hard constantly to stay ahead.”

At age fifteen, Evan was invited to play for the sixteen and under Florida All Stars travel team which made it to the national level tournament. A year later he was asked to play for the seventeen and under team, 561 Select, for a tournament held in Kentucky. After each of these tournaments, Evan and his coaches were approached by college assistant coaches looking to continue to follow Evan’s development and progress. Evan has received communication from a number of colleges including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Florida Atlantic University, University of Central Florida, University of South Florida, Amherst, and University of San Francisco, among others.

He currently plays high school varsity basketball for Spanish River High School in Boca Raton and there is a reason that Division I schools are calling. Evan has been written up as one of ten players to watch by the Sun Sentinel and was the only sophomore in Palm Beach County named to the All County Team last season. This season? He’s just gotten better. His 18.3 points per game and 11.8 rebounds per game is good enough to lead all of Palm Beach County in rebounding and is seventh in scoring. Evan brings consistent maximum effort to every practice and game. He says, “if I take off just one possession, that means someone else can be getting better than me.” That is unacceptable to him.

At fifteen years old Evan worked out with Impact Basketball, a training company out of Las Vegas, Nevada. Their assessment of Evan was that he has tremendous potential at the three or four position. In order for him to be able to excel at the next level, he will need to improve his outside shot. He is a hard worker and he has the skills needed to progress and develop at those positions. Evan works with a full-time shooting coach on improving his form as well as his all around guard skills. He feels this hard work will allow him to shift from the power forward position to the small forward position in college.

Evan is considered a top fifty player in the State of Florida and Breakdown Magazine ranks Evan number thirty-six amongst all Florida players from the class of 2012. He has won Maccabi gold twice, in 2009 and 2010 summer JCC games. In 2009 his Boca Maccabi JCC team won gold in San Antonio against the rival Miami Maccabi JCC squad. Evan was the only fifteen year old asked to play on this sixteen and under team. In 2010, Evan’s Boca Maccabi JCC team struck gold again, this time in Baltimore. Coach Danny Herz, who coached Evan on the Maccabi teams said “Evan is a pleasure to coach. He brings a competitive spirit to practice everyday and applies that competitiveness to the games.” See Evan’s alley-oop dunk from the 2009 JCC Maccabi Games in San Antonio below:

“He is a great rebounder and a physical player,” says Evan’s father. “For a Jewish kid, he can really play inner-city basketball and mix it up inside.” The Jewish Sports Review, a publication out of California, has written Evan up as a legitimate Division I prospect. Coach Herz added that “Evan is strong and tough – no doubt – but it is his intelligence that allows him to be such a good player.” Coach Herz says he has been fortunate enough to coach sixteen college players over the last four years, and “Evan has the ability, skill set, size and smarts to be the next one.” Evan hopes to earn a scholarship to a mid or high major Division I program after his senior year at Spanish River High School. He is currently recovering from a season-ending injury. While most people gain weight during missed time for an injury, Evan has managed to lose fifteen pounds. He hopes that this will increase his agility as he continues to work on his guard skills so that he can play multiple positions at the next level.

There is no doubt that this hard working athlete will achieve his goals. Coach Herz sums up Evan quite nicely. He says, “Evan Kupferberg is a winner.”

If you would like to contact Evan, check out his website www.evankupferberg.com for information.

Article written by Jewishhoopsamerica.com
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