College Achievers: Burlington Central grad Scharnowski is throwing it down at Belmont University
Drew Scharnowski grew up with a basketball in his hand. For that, Nashville’s Belmont University is grateful.
The 6-foot-9 sophomore, captain of the Daily Herald’s 2022-23 Fox Valley All-Area Boys Basketball Team as a senior at Burlington Central, starts at forward for the Bruins.
At 22-3 overall and leading the Missouri Valley Conference at 12-2, Belmont is compiling its best season since winning the Ohio Valley Conference in 2021.
Shooting 68% from the floor — he dunks a lot — Scharnowski is averaging 11.3 points, 2.5 assists, and team highs of 6.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocks a game.
“I knew our team was very talented, I knew we could have success. I honestly had no idea that this season was going to play out as it has like this for me. It’s been a little crazy, I did not expect it,” he said.
“It just kind of happened, and I’ve really done my best to kind of stay level throughout the season, not let my lows get too low and my highs get too high.”
He was schooled in that on the club scene with Breakaway Basketball, at Burlington Central under coach Brett Porto, and through it all, at home on the border of Elgin and Burlington.
His father, Haug Scharnowski, was easy to pick out of the crowd at Wheaton Academy when he showed up to watch his middle son, Max, play for the Warriors.
At 6-7, Haug Scharnowski led St. Cloud State in rebounding for four seasons. He was a three-time academic all-conference pick who went on to play professionally in his native Germany.
Max Scharnowski didn’t play a bunch at Alabama, but he did win the 2024 NCAA Elite 90 Award as the player with the highest grade-point average in the Final Four.
Now, along with mom Cynthia Scharnowski, they all live in Franklin, Tenn. All but oldest son, Sam, in Columbia Law School and also an intern with the Brooklyn Nets.
Drew talks to him nearly every day, he said. Max comes over to review game film, when he’s free from studying for the Medical College Admission Test or in a cancer research lab at Vanderbilt.
“It’s a very, very basketball-focused family, so it’s fun for me,” said Drew Scharnowski, who likes reading and building Lego sets in his down time.
With the whole family now out of Illinois, he had a rare couple days in Chicago between Friday’s win at Illinois-Chicago and Monday’s game against Bradley in Peoria.
After tearing a meniscus late in the summer before his freshman year at Belmont — it figures he’s studying kinesiology — he had to redshirt his first season. It gave him time to learn the Bruins’ systems, eat a ton, and bulk up.
Adding 25 pounds of muscle onto his 7-foot wingspan since high school, Scharnowski averaged 5.5 points and 3 rebounds for Belmont in the 2023-24 season.
This season he’s recorded four double-doubles, including a 19-point, 11-rebound effort in a win over Murray State. That was the first of Belmont’s two straight 100-point victories, the first MVC team to do that since 1988.
Scharnowski calls college basketball “really flippin’ hard,” but results like that and teammates like these make it easier.
“It’s a lot of fun, definitely the best Belmont team I’ve been on since I’ve been here. It feels like on and off the court, too. We actually hang out, we spend time together outside of the basketball court, which I think is really important,” Scharnowski said.
“We’re playing so fast and I feel like this team is so unselfish. Guys want to make a winning play and not just cater to their game or fill their stat sheet.”