One of the top scorers and playmakers in the nation, and highly ranked on its basketball team, Kodebe Griffith, is trying to impress professional scouts. This backcourt player’s specialist is setting up for his John Jay College teammates. He did this part of his game in his junior season at John Jay.
Griffith helped to lead his team, the Bloodhounds, to a decent start in a four team tip off tournament, hosted by Manhattan’s New York University during a recent weekend. The host school also got off to a decent beginning even though the Violets finished runner-up to the tournament winner, Union College, located in upstate New York.
Some of these colleges are capable of going deep into the NCAA Division III tournament at the end of the season come March.
Griffith was born in Guyana, where he lived for his first six years. Then his family moved to Africa, where they resided for another six years or until Korede reached 12 years of age. Then he came with his parents to New York.
His father is Compton Griffith, who hails from South America, and his mother is Joycelyn Griffith, who hails from the Cribbean.
Because of the set-up in the recent tournament, and the season is at its early stages the coaches tried to give players equal times, to see what kind of personnel they can put in actual competition.
Before Griffith even entered his senior year at John Jay College, he was an all-CUNY player as a junior . The coaches picked their all-league team right before the start of the 1914–15 season.
“I didn’t inherit him nor I did I inherit [some of the other guys] who are on my [roster],” he said. “[Korede] is one of our bright [players]. He came for the education and for the opportunity to get a great education in the criminal justice field.”
He spent his high school days at Brooklyn Prep, where he played basketball and was a member of its track and field teams and cross-country squad. And then he participated in four sports at John Jay College.
‘The more sports one plays the more versatility one deals with,” the coach said. “As for basketball, he plays a complete game. He almost needs to be a little more aggressive I want him to shoot the ball a little bit more.”
At John Jay, he tried out for its college soccer team and played left and right wings. On the college basketball team, he can pay either shooting or point guard positions and even forward.
However, he did say that competing in the City University of New York Athletic Conference has been a letdown for him every year that he has been involved.
Last year on the basketball team, the 5-foot-11 Griffith, then a junior, finished second in the nation among NCAA Division III colleges, with a 15-point-a-game average, and second in the nation in field goal percentage shooting at a .416 clip,
In addition to on the court action, he was a captain of John Jay’s hoops team.
Griffith feels that the John Jay Bloodhounds will pose a challenge for a CUNYAC championship. They will do just fine on the court.
“We got good leadership all around,” he added “We have to work day by day.”
Griffith with his family resides in the east Flatbush section of Brooklyn.
