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Varsity Q&A: Northeast boys basketball guard Cam Albury forges his own path

Senior point guard Cam Albury is now the sole owner of Northeast boys basketball’s career scoring record after scoring his 1,041st point against Annapolis on Monday. (The previous record stood at 1,038).

His older brother, Jaylin Albury, was the 2019-20 Capital Gazette boys basketball Player of the Year and owns the Eagles’ all-time assists record. Entering high school right afterward, the younger Albury felt extremely aware of the shadow his sibling cast.

Albury recently spoke with The Capital about the record and about making his own path. Editor’s note: Some questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget what coach Roger O’Dea described. Your brother and his team are 30 seconds away from walking through a Northeast parade to send them off to the Class 3A state semifinals when they find out it’s been canceled because of the pandemic. 

But for you, you were about to lose your freshman season. You were a couple steps behind in reaching your goals. What were they, then, when you came in here?

I wanted to win a championship. I didn’t even think I could get to 1,000.

Why not?

I didn’t even think I was close until I looked over the [past] summer and I was at 697. And I was like, ‘Oh I’m going to get this.’

So you’ve obviously watched what your brother did, maybe thinking ‘I’m going to get stuck in his shadow when I come here.’ How do you think about making yourself stand out?

When I was in eighth, ninth grade, that’s something I was thinking about a lot. I don’t want to just be Jaylin’s little brother. But then at the end of my sophomore year, I made All-County. Nobody calls me that. Everybody knows I’m just Cam. I let it go.

He’s always going to support what I do, and I’m always going to support what he does.

I think one of the pitfalls of being so talented your first year is that you spend the rest of your high school career having people game plan for you, point out your weaknesses on film, etc. How have you adapted to stay fresh for these opponents?

To be honest, it’s a lot of cardio. I get double, triple-teamed a lot, box-and one — I know that, so I run. I know I’ll have to work to get the ball, so I make sure I can always be fresh at the end of games. I know defenses plan for me, and it doesn’t frustrate me. It’s a compliment, saying ‘We want to take you out.’

So obviously with the classifications changing and you guys having more Howard County teams in your region, you’re not going back to Stephen Decatur. You can’t fix what happened last year. So how do you face these playoffs knowing these teams are unfamiliar?

That’s why we want home court advantage as long as we can. We don’t know what the atmosphere at those schools is like because we’ve never been there. We want them to come to us and our fans, because our student section shows up. They came last night, they came tonight, and people tell me all the time to keep my head up. So come to The Nest.

I remember that, when your brother’s team had Kent Island in the playoffs and the kids made an ESPN table.

I think we’re doing that again.

How do you guys stay competitive knowing most of your biggest matchups are behind you?

We don’t want to overlook any team. When we lost to Crofton in December, we overlooked them. They caught us off guard. So ever since then, I always say to treat this game like it’s South River. If we play a team that’s not up to the level as South River, we want to blow them out of the gym early.

What legacy do you think you’re leaving for this team?

Hopefully a big one. I think me and my brother both did. We’re gonna leave a really big mark, especially if we win some championships this year, too. It would’ve been cool if me and my brother both could have done that.


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