My story.

Memo Bener

5'10 Former D1 Guard

3 min read

I've been where you are, and where you want to be. I left my family's house at 18 for a continent I knew nothing about.

After high school I took two gap years. Horrible stats. 5'10. An international with no coach connections, alone in the process.

I emailed college coaches by hand, every single day. It was slow, hard work, and a lot of those emails were ignored.

I was almost 20, with no offers and no school. No recruiting service was working, and we were lost.

So my dad and I sat down, thought our way through it, and built a strategy of our own. It was our last resort. It was the start of what I now call The Small Guard Method.

Once we stayed loyal to our system, things began to change. Coaches started answering.

It started small: junior colleges, NAIA programs, a few small schools in Canada. Then Division II schools came in, first with partial scholarships, then with full rides.

I used each offer to open the next door, and Division I programs started coming in. Then Campbell offered me. At 5'10, I was on a Division I roster.

The NCAA took a year of my eligibility, and I chose to red-shirt my first season. It was a long year of growth. It taught me a lot about basketball, and about myself.

After that season, the coaches and I agreed that a different program would be best for me. So I went back to the system my dad and I had built.

Coming from a Division I program, I thought I didn't need a system anymore. I learned the hard way that I was wrong. Not enough coaches were seeing my film.

I went to junior college, and I didn't get the playing time I expected of myself. I'm not here to hide that.

I stayed a student of the game. I learned a lot about college recruiting, and how much it matters to go where you are valued. Then I went to Whitman.

Along the way I've been at almost every level of college basketball. I learned how it works from a player's side, and how coaches see it.

I love this game, and I don't want any player or family to go through what I went through alone. What I needed back then was a mentor who had been where I was. So helping others became my passion.

Now I help small guards and their families get college offers. I work with them one-on-one, and only when we both agree we can get somewhere together. I never promise a level, or an offer.