Drone Featured

As the time gets closer to making a college choice, Andrew Drone is just trying to enjoy playing high school basketball.

At 6-foot-11 and 270 pounds, Drone is a load for anyone to handle. But he's looking toward the next level and knows he needs to lose some weight and work on his quickness.

"Every university is going to have me on weight programs and try to get me to lose weight, and I'm ready for that," Drone said. "I know there are going to be a lot of changes in my game, my eating habits and everything."

Drone is already working on dropping some pounds, but it's just not working very well so far.

"It's really hard for me to lose weight," Drone said. "I can diet and eat salads with no dressing and grilled chicken, but it's still hard for me to lose the weight. I'm just built extremely big."

Ideally, Drone would like to trim down to 260 pounds for college, and in a perfect world, he'd like to have a playing weight of 250. But it's been a tough road to this point.

"The college coaches keep telling me that I have really good hands with a nice touch," Drone said. "It's just that I need to work on my weight and my speed. Those are really the only complaints against me."

The Gallatin County junior is averaging 23 points and 10 rebounds per game. He believes that his team's solid schedule has helped out the team quite a bit, even if it doesn't show in the win category.

The Hawks are 13-8 this season and suffered a tough loss to Meridian, 88-51, on Saturday. It wasn't so much that they lost game, but that it was basically over at halftime.

Just one week earlier, Gallatin County finally picked up a win over its conference rival, Crab Orchard. The Hawks lost to the Trojans two times this season, but were able to pick up a two-point victory in the GEC Tournament.

"It felt good to finally beat them this season," Drone said. "It was kind of nerve wracking in the first half because if I fell out of a boat I wouldn't hit water. I couldn't even hit a two foot layup. The main thing about playing Crab Orchard is you just have to get back on defense to beat them."

Drone has already received a full ride offer from Wright State University, and there's a Missouri Valley Conference program that might offer in the near future, but Drone declined to talk about that school on the record.

Whatever university he winds up playing for; that school will get a player that works hard and absolutely loves the game of basketball.

"I really love being around the game," Drone said. "I know what I want to go into and that's audiology. I know that playing AAU ball has helped me out a lot, but I'm still not at the level I want to be at just yet."

Gallatin County returns to action on Tuesday with a home game against Thompsonville.

Article from the Southern Illinoisan.