Valparaiso University head men’s basketball coach Roger Powell Jr. banged on his desk. His office was filled with emotional human beings hugging and embracing one another. Soon, an enthusiastic Homer Drew and his wife Janet Drew would learn the news via phone. The joy was caused by a full-circle moment that can only be described as “meant to be.”

Isaiah Shaw (Phoenix, Ariz. / Davidson Academy [Grand Canyon]) has joined the Valpo basketball program. A 6-foot-8 guard with three years of eligibility remaining, Shaw is the grandson of legendary Valpo head coach Homer Drew, the nephew of Bryce and Scott and the son of Dana Drew Shaw and her husband Casey.

“It’s hard to put into words what this means to me,” Shaw said. “Coming back to the place where my grandpa’s name is on the court and my uncle’s jersey is in the rafters is a special thing. God couldn’t have written a better story. Only He could have done something this amazing and this cool. I’m coming to a place that feels like home to play for something that is bigger than what’s on the court.”

Shaw was born in Rome, Italy while his father was playing professionally. Casey’s professional season would run from September to April or May, and Isaiah went to Italian school through second grade. The family had a summer home in Valpo and would spend the summer months with Bryce and the Valpo coaching staff.

“European and American basketball are very, very different,” Isaiah said. “From a young age, I remember doing the basketball practices in Italy and it was strictly fundamentals. It was chest passes, bounce passes and dribbling through cones, very fundamentally driven. God has been so good to me all my life and I’ve had the opportunity to live in a bunch of different places and experience a bunch of different people. I have friends from all over the world. I’ve been part of different cultures and picked things up from each one.”

When Isaiah was about 10 years old, Casey retired from playing and began working for a financial planning company in Chicago. The family lived in Valpo for a year and a half, then in Chicago for another three years. The next stop for the Shaw family was Nashville, Tenn. as Bryce departed Valpo to become the head coach at Vanderbilt. Casey joined Bryce’s staff at Vanderbilt, and Powell went with Bryce from Valpo to Vandy.

During Isaiah’s junior year of high school, there was a coaching change at Vanderbilt and Bryce took a one-year hiatus from the sidelines before accepting his current job at Grand Canyon University, where Casey joined him on staff. During the gap year, Casey served as the head coach for Isaiah’s high school team, Davidson Academy in Nashville. Isaiah’s brother Caleb was also on the team, and Homer served as an assistant coach.

“We won so many games and it was the most fun basketball year of my life,” Isaiah said. “We set a school record for wins, won the district tournament for the first time in 20 years and beat our rival in the district championship. We ended up going to the state elite eight. I hit 1,000 points and was district MVP, and my brother was on the all-tournament team with me. Being able to play for my dad and grandpa and with my brother was the most fun year of my basketball career.”

Isaiah’s relationship with Powell goes back to when Powell and Casey played together in Italy.

“On our zoom call, he held up a picture of when he was playing in Italy with my dad,” Isaiah said. “It was Coach Powell and Ms. Tara (Powell’s wife) with my parents and two siblings. I was about 5 years old in the picture. I’ve known him going all the way back; he’s always been my guy. He coached me in the Valpo camps, and we have so many memories from when we were in Nashville together. There’s a story where I hit his car in a parking lot when I was trying to park. They were practicing and I wanted to watch their practice at Vandy, and I hit his car. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry.’ He is family to me. He’s strong in his faith and someone I look up to. I’m blessed to get to be part of the program he’s running.”

From Isaiah’s first phone call with Powell after entering the transfer portal, it was clear that Valpo was the place he needed to be.

“We are extremely excited about the addition of Isaiah Shaw,” Powell said. “He comes from a strong family pedigree, and it’s awesome to bring that tradition back to Valparaiso University. He has great size and versatility to go along with an ability to shoot the basketball. He has a tremendous understanding of the game, and he’s been a part of winning. Isaiah has high levels of faith, integrity and character. We’re thrilled that he has three years of eligibility remaining and cannot wait to see what he can accomplish in our program.”

Casey was drafted 37^th overall by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1998 NBA Draft out of the University of Toledo. After one season in the NBA, he spent the majority of his career in Italy, leading the league in rebounding in 2005. He also played in Poland, Spain and Latvia. A 1990 Valparaiso High School graduate, Dana is a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame and was an Indiana All-Star and first-team all-state selection before scoring in double figures in every game she played at Toledo, where she finished with a school-record 1,919 career points in addition to a school-record 659 assists. Dana was a two-time Mid-American Conference Player of the Year and a three-time MAC Tournament MVP. The two-time Academic All-American was inducted into the Toledo Hall of Fame in 2001.

Isaiah is the second oldest of four siblings. His older sister Anna, age 23, never got into sports and is in the movie-making industry. She directs and choreographs films, making Christian and family-friendly movies. Youngest brother Luke just finished his senior year of high school in Arizona and set a school record for career points while leading his team to three state championships and earning league MVP honors. He will be taking a postgrad year at Athletes in Action Prep in Lebanon, Ohio. With Luke about a four-hour drive away, Isaiah hopes to see a couple of his youngest brother’s games. The second-youngest sibling is Caleb, who redshirted at Grand Canyon this past season after transferring from Northern Colorado.

“Caleb is my best friend in the entire world,” Isaiah said. “He’s my ride or die. People ask if I’m blessed because of my height or shooting ability, but my biggest blessing is my family. My family is everything to me. God has blessed me with an amazing family, and each one of them means the world to me.”

Shaw, who averaged 17.5 points per game, 6.5 rebounds per game and shot 40 percent from 3-point range at Davidson Academy in 2019-20, spent the 2020-21 season at Phoenix Prep. He redshirted at GCU in 2021-22, then appeared in seven games before missing the rest of the season with a knee injury and using a medical redshirt in 2022-23. This past season in 2023-24, he saw action in 32 out of 35 games for a Lopes team that went 30-5 overall, 17-3 in the Western Athletic Conference and won the WAC regular season and tournament titles before beating Saint Mary’s in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and falling to Alabama in the Round of 32.

“If I had to list my strengths, I would say number one would be my shooting ability,” Shaw said. “I had the opportunity to train with my uncle Bryce going into my junior year of high school. We worked for three months where we just worked on my shot. I got to learn shooting from one of the best college basketball shooters of all time. I’m 6-foot-8 and have a longer build; I’m a bigger guard. I have a lot of versatility at my position and can guard 1-4. I’m a fundamentally-sound basketball player. I know every position on the floor. I’m a coach’s kid, so I know different situations and I read the game really well. The last and most important part of my game is that I’m a winner through and through. I’ve won at every level of my career. I know what it takes to win. I work hard in practice every day because that’s what it takes to win.”

Although he will be a sophomore in terms of athletic eligibility, Shaw will already have an undergraduate degree under his belt when he arrives on Valpo’s campus. He graduated from GCU in three years with a degree in business management and a minor in biblical studies. He will pursue a master’s in business administration (MBA) at Valpo.

Away from the court, Isaiah plays a little bit of guitar, which his dad taught him at a young age. He and his brother play Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo Switch, which like anything in the Drew/Shaw households, gets a little competitive. Another family activity that gets the competitive juices flowing is ping pong.

All this takes us back to the beginning of our story, and the memorable evening in Powell’s office. Isaiah and Dana met with Powell and his full coaching staff. Entering the meeting, Isaiah knew that if the visit went really well, there was a chance he would commit on the visit, but he planned to at least sleep on it before finalizing a decision.

“I wasn’t planning on committing right then; it was kind of a shock to my mom who was sitting in the office,” Isaiah said. “Coach Powell did his power point on why I should come to Valpo. In my heart, I knew there was no way I could walk out of that meeting without committing. The fit was perfect. It was exactly what I was looking for. He did such an amazing job. At the end of the presentation, I put him on edge a little bit because I didn’t want to make it too easy. Then I said, ‘You guys have shown how committed you are to me; it’s my turn to be committed to you. I’m coming to Valpo.’”

Shaw embraces the responsibility of carrying on the family legacy at the school where his kin are the legends of all legends. But he enters the 2024-25 season with a mature confidence that he can simultaneously create his own Valpo legacy while honoring theirs.

“The name on the back of my jersey has never changed,” Isaiah said. “That pressure, if you want to call it that, has been there my whole life; it’s nothing new. It’s been a process of learning how to deal with it, and at the end of the day, while I do share a name with other people in my family who mean a lot to me and are special to me, it’s also my own name. There is no other Isaiah Shaw out there. This is a great balance going to a school where there is family history, but I have a chance to be my own player and my family is not directly involved there now. It’s a blessing that I get to do that at Valpo, and I can’t wait to start working.”