Sam Brand sat in the lobby of what was once a church at the corner of West Franklin and Cathedral streets, pinned his index finger into the black foldable tabletop and said, “We’re doing this wrong.” The beautifully renovated gym behind him and detailed floor plans spread out before him are the seeds of his vision to get it right.

What Brand, the executive director for Team Melo and former Poly boys basketball coach, was talking about is the grassroots level of Baltimore hoops. It’s suffering from a larger nationwide trend in youth sports, becoming evermore privatized and less affordable. That leaves local talent to seek development elsewhere or often fail to reach their full potential.

In March, hoping to buck that norm in Baltimore, Brand opened doors to The Sanctuary.

It’s three floors of a cathedral flipped into a basketball gym, outfitted with stained-glass windows that breathe life into the former place of worship. There’s a sparkly court on the main floor, donated by Jordan’s Terminal 23 in New York City. Renovation plans to this tabernacle feature a mental wellness center and a workout room. Brand has visions of a computer lab to do homework and watch basketball, as well as a kitchen downstairs to ensure healthy eating habits.

During a recent camp session, Brand gathered the group of elementary-school-aged kids at center court. He explained to fawning eyes that this gym was theirs. “I want you to grow up here,” he said.

The Sanctuary — which allows families to pay what they’re able, relying on sponsors and grant money for funding — is setting out to develop and retain Baltimore talent.

“To me, (Derik Queen) is proof of concept for The Sanctuary. When you invest in Baltimore and Baltimore kids, greatness awaits,” Brand said. “It’s just actualization.”

Queen grew up in the Belair-Edison neighborhood. He found a love of the game by dribbling through every Northeast Baltimore court. A local coach discovered him and provided structure to learn the game. Queen eventually left the city and St. Frances to play three years at Montverde Academy in Florida, but the mentorship that put him on his track to the NBA was still right there with him at the draft Wednesday night representing the city.The Sanctuary’s associate program director Jamal K. Atkins, a St. Frances graduate who forged a career in basketball development overseas before moving home, likes to say this space was created to “save souls.” He believes they “recreated this building to do the same thing from a different perspective.”

Rather than saving from the rapture, this is a solution to the issue of overly monetized basketball development, the kind that is often pigeon-holed to the sport with a return on investment as the singular end goal.

Trainers cost a fortune and travel teams aren’t cheap, leaving bushels of untapped potential by the wayside. Jay Caspian Kang wrote in the New Yorker this week, “Increasingly, players are made as much as they are born, and making those players costs money.” Public school students in Baltimore and working class families, Brand said, are “systemically being excluded.”

Brand coached at Poly for a decade. He brought the middling program to national prominence, winning three consecutive state titles. Sean Brunson, founder of the Brunson League Pro-Am, called Brand “the guy that changed the face of public basketball in our city.”

He understands the power of retaining and watering local talent.

Queen wears Baltimore on his sleeve even if he spent three years at Montverde before his homecoming season at University of Maryland. Last summer, Bub Carrington was drafted by the Wizards after a one-and-done season at Pittsburgh by way of St. Frances Academy. Justin Lewis, who graduated from Poly and is now with the Chicago Bulls, is one of the few examples of what Brand is looking to recreate.

Kwame Evans Jr. and Brandon Murray both played briefly at Poly before heading to Montverde and IMG, respectively, charting them toward playing in the NCAA Tournament earlier this year. Chase Foster is the latest example — a top-50 player in the 2026 class, according to ESPN, who left Edmondson-Westside, a public school in Baltimore, for IMG.

The best of the best will find a way. What about everyone else?

“Here’s the real tough stat,” Brand said.

The past four years of Baltimore City public school graduating classes — from 2022 to 2025 — there have been only two boys basketball scholarships given out. Both of them graduated this spring and were the sons of coaches, meaning the only incentive for the city’s premiere hoopers to stay in the public league is to play for dad.

When Brand was growing up, the developmental path in basketball went like this: knock on the door of your neighborhood recreation center and learn the game under mentorship of a trusted coach and teacher. If you were good, you’d play in the league within that section of the city. If you were really good, you represented your section of the city in a larger Baltimore league. The best players there were plucked to wear Baltimore across their chests traveling around the country on an AAU circuit. And those kids were practically guaranteed to play college ball.

“At 16, I remember going home to tell my mom I’m going to Charlotte to play basketball,” Brand said. “She was like, ‘What? I don’t have any money to send you.’ I said, ‘I don’t have to pay anything.’ ”

The Sanctuary is recapturing that accessibility while offering a wealth of athletics-adjacent resources. It’s also partnering with Brunson to start a youth league not unlike the one Brand made his community of friends growing up playing with. Players leave home because they feel like they can’t get developed locally.

The Sanctuary disagrees.

‘You have all this at your fingertips,” Brand said, again smacking his finger against sheets of paper sprawled on the table. “Why would you leave?”

Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn.