ATTLEBORO, Mass. — Brody Bumila’s weekly routine this winter is not like most high school athletes.
The two-sport athlete at Bishop Feehan has a future in baseball as a pitcher, but right now it’s basketball season, and he plans accordingly. Sundays are typically an off day for basketball, so he spends it doing a moderate baseball catch play. Monday is another light catch combined with a shoulder program he does three days a week. There’s no baseball on Tuesday; that’s typically a basketball game day.
On Wednesday, he shifts back into baseball with a bullpen, lift and the shoulder program, working it around basketball practice. On Thursday, another basketball practice comes before light throwing, typically 40-50 throws to move his arm after Wednesday’s bullpen. Bumila then clears his schedule for Friday’s basketball game before Saturday’s practice and a light bullpen and lift. He does this while managing school and homework, too.
This is the current life of Bumila. He’s an elite baseball pitching prospect committed to Texas who can fire a fastball 97 mph. He’s third in New England Baseball Journal’s inaugural Class of 2026 rankings. He has already interviewed with 23 MLB teams and could be drafted this summer. But he’s also one of MIAA’s most dominant basketball players for one of the best teams in the state.
Bumila may be MIAA’s biggest matchup nightmare. At 6-foot-9, he has several inches over most of his tallest opponents. His combination of size, strength and athleticism makes him almost impossible to defend, and slowing him down typically requires double or triple teams.
You may have seen some of the gaudy stat lines he’s putting up on a nightly basis this winter: a 24-point, 16-rebound, four-block effort to topple Bridgewater-Raynham, 35 and 15 rebounds in a win over Bishop Stang, 38 points and 18 rebounds to beat Walpole. Or you might have even seen his 46-point explosion – in one half – on Friday night. Bumila is averaging obscene numbers (27.5 points and 15.1 rebounds per game) to lead 11-4 Bishop Feehan, which is No. 8 in the Division 1 power rankings as of Friday.
In an alternate universe, where Bumila pursued a basketball future instead of baseball, there’s belief he’d be a Division 1 recruit, too.
“I think I would be at the same level as a basketball recruit that I am at baseball, probably,” Bumila said.
“He was definitely a Division 1 player if he was just a basketball guy,” Bishop Feehan coach Dean O’Connor said. “I think this is my 25th year as a varsity coach, I’ve had some really good players, but nobody like him.”
Bumila’s greatest passion has always been baseball. He said ever since he was around 4 or 5 years old, making MLB was his dream. But his passion for basketball has always rivaled baseball. It was the summer following his freshman year of high school when Bumila made the decision to seriously pursue baseball as his future. That meant basketball took a backseat, but he has continued to play it on the side as something fun he can do.
Last season, Bumila suffered a high ankle sprain that forced him out for the final 11 games. But the risk of injury playing a different sport is not a concern for him. He said he doesn’t live his life with that fear, and he does all the right things – mobility work, stretches and dynamic stretching – to keep him as healthy as possible. So why does he keep playing basketball? For one, it’s a way for him to get away from the pressure revolving around his baseball future. He just wants to have some fun with his friends and doesn’t want to have any regrets.
“I just think it’s something I can do,” Bumila said. “I mean, it’s my senior year, I only get one senior year, and I get the ability to enjoy it with my friends.”
O’Connor remembers people telling him before Bumila’s junior season that he may not play basketball as he focused on baseball. Those rumors were news to O’Connor, who understood if Bumila decided not to play.
“But he enjoys playing basketball, and why not?” O’Connor said. “He doesn’t look at it as work. There’s no pressure on him, he’s not going to the NBA or a college scholarship for basketball. He can just go out and have fun. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t work hard, because he does, but it’s just a different mindset for him. In my mind, it’s like, it’s incredible that he can be this dominant and it’s a second thing. It’s kind of scary.”
In some ways, Bumila said, playing basketball actually benefits him with baseball.
As a pitcher, he said it helps his endurance on the mound. He can go longer in starts, especially early on in the season. While other pitchers haven’t necessarily worked on their lower body, Bumila has been playing basketball throughout the winter. And because he’s using different parts of his body during basketball, it allows him to be more athletic and explosive and make adjustments easier.
Bumila hasn’t always been this dominant on the hardwood. He played JV as a freshman, when O’Connor remembers him as a skinnier, gangly kid. But he made varsity as a sophomore and then broke out as a junior as his body kept developing. Feehan didn’t lose a game last season with Bumila in the lineup before his injury.
How has Bumila been so successful? It obviously has a lot to do with his size and strength, but there’s more to it. He excels at getting down the floor before the opposing big, creating positioning and advantages inside. At this point, he’s seen every defensive coverage in the book. When double teams come – and they do often, and in different ways – he’s developed a good understanding of passing out of them, creating passing angles and finding cutters and shooters. He's also improved at dealing with physical contact.
“He’s seen pretty much every kind of defense because obviously teams are trying to figure out a way to slow him down a little bit,” O’Connor said. “He’s done a good job handling that, getting his teammates involved, dealing with getting fouled a lot and not responding by getting chippy. I give him a lot of credit for that. It gets old for me as a coach because he gets hacked a lot. …
“I’ve coached other kids that height, but not that strength. He’s got the combination of both size and strength, and the thing that he also has, he’s very aggressive. … He’s got that aggressiveness to him, which makes him really difficult. He has the size, strength and skill, he’s a dominant presence. He’s hard. …
Bumila has a competitive streak to him, too. He makes it a point to assert his dominance early and often.
“I come in with the same mentality for baseball, basketball, any competitive sport,” Bumila said. “I’m a super competitive person and I think I’m the best player on the court and I think I’m the best player on the field when I pitch too, so why not come in with the same mentality in basketball?”
Bumila is also extremely athletic. He has an advanced second jump to grab his own rebounds, a high-level reaction time to get rebounds out of his own area, and he’s agile for his size. O’Connor recalled a play in a game this season vs. Attleboro when there was a loose ball. Bumila was chasing it against a smaller and faster guard, but he battled for it, picked the ball up the floor and maintained his balance before avoiding a defender in transition and dunking it.
“It was really incredible,” O’Connor said. “It showcased a lot of the athletic ability that he has. He’s not just a big strong guy — he’s that, but he has lots of other things that he can do.”
As the state tournament looms later this month, Feehan obviously relies a lot on Bumila, but they feel like they have a group around him – which includes fellow co-captains Jake Webster and Lucas McNally – to make a deep run.
The Shamrocks have a win over Bridgewater-Raynham on their resume that show their great potential. And they may have the biggest matchup problem in the state.
“I’m extremely motivated,” said Bumila. “I kind of owe it to my teammates for not being able to play last year. I also owe it to myself, I owe it to the school, I owe it to everyone who’s helped me, knowing we can make a far run. ... Why not try to give it my all?”
This summer, the world will be different for Bumila, who could potentially get drafted. O’Connor joked that Bumila is more valuable in basketball than baseball because he can play in every game rather than once every five days as a pitcher. But he feels incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to coach him on the hardwood for one last ride.
“To have him back this year and healthy, you don’t know obviously with baseball (as) his thing — why do you still play, right?” O’Connor said. “But he loves to compete, he loves to play, he likes being with a different group of kids. I think he really enjoys that.”
