Markus Kennedy committed to Villanova during his junior year of high school as a member of the 2010 class and signed with the Wildcats in the fall of 2009 to make it official. Instead of being a freshman at VU this year though, he is doing a post-graduate year at Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, N.H.

Although it will be a year later than originally expected, Kennedy will still take his game to the Main Line. He will be doing so after maturing both on and off the basketball court. VUSports.com had the chance to discuss that progress and more with Kennedy as he prepared for the final few games of his prep career.

Kennedy, who said he is now 6-foot-10, 262 pounds, is a key part of a talented Brewster Academy team that is 30-2 on the season. He said he is averaging around 12 points and 11 rebounds for the Bobcats, who are coming off of a loss to Maine Central Institute in the NEPSAC Class AAA tournament semifinals.

While a conference title is now out of the question with the loss, a national championship is still very much in the picture. Kennedy and Co. will be playing in the National Prep Championship at Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut this week and the big man has his sights set on some hardware.

"Just winning the national championship," Kennedy said of his remaining high school hoops goals. "We have three more possible games we can play. We can play one or two, but I feel me and my team, we're locked in were ready for war. We had a talk [on Saturday] that everybody wants us because we got Brewster on our jersey and we're the [defending] national champion so we gotta play like we the underdog . . . We gotta be able to take a punch and then punch back . . . I just wanna win a national title, that's all I think about."

Kennedy, who said he is all set for college academically, has had some conditioning issues in the past, but feels good for the most part with how he is right now.

"I definitely think I can . . . lose a little more weight," the Philadelphia native said. "It's just tone it up, turn it up turn it into muscle. Because right now . . . the strength and conditioning coach at Nova [said that my] ideal weight [to play at] would be 270 because of [the way I] move, but I'm already [below] that. So, just tone it up, lose a little baby fat. So, that would be great as freshman."

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