A five-star prospect out of high school, Carter Bryant excelled in his lone season with the Arizona Wildcats despite limited playing time and is now projected to be a lottery pick at the 2025 NBA Draft.
Bryant comes from a family of basketball players, with his father also serving as a coach and having worked with NBA star Kawhi Leonard. So, let’s get to know his parents in detail and explore how they influenced his rise to the top of the draft boards.
Meet Carter Bryant’s Parents, Sabrina Torres and D’Cean Bryant
Bryant was born on November 26, 2005, to Sabrina Torres and D’Cean Bryant. He grew up in Riverside, California, a region known for producing solid basketball talent. While much information about his mother’s professional life isn’t known in the public domain, she has served as emotional support for the NBA hopeful and channeled his passion in the right direction.
“The one thing about Carter that he’s had since he was very young is a great work ethic and huge dreams,” Torres said. “He would always ask, ‘If I did this, can I be that?’ He would always continuously ask, at 4 or 5 years old, ‘You know, mom, do you think if I put in work every day I could be as good as Kobe? Do you think I could be a good as …’ And I would tell him, `You know, son, make a name for yourself, and you can be as good as you want to be. Whatever you put into that role, you get out of it.’ ”
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Meanwhile, Bryant’s father, D’Cean, is a former college basketball player who played 114 games over four seasons for Long Beach State in the 1990s. He averaged 8.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game.
D’Cean later transitioned to coaching and worked as an assistant coach at Riverside’s King High School, where he worked with Leonard as well. He later became an assistant for Orange Lutheran before taking up the head coach position at Fountain Valley (Calif.) High School.
D’Cean will be the head coach of Grand Island Public Schools starting in 2025. He previously held the same position at Sage Hill School in Newport Coast, Calif., where he led the team to six California Southern Section titles.
The Bryant family has deep SoCal hoop roots: new Sage Hill/Newport Beach coach D’Cean played for @SethOnHoops at Long Beach State, brother Travon was a 2000 McDees who was All-Big 12 at Missouri & recent NBA assistant & D’Cean’s son Carter is a 2024 HM making a name for himself pic.twitter.com/XkRbMuLpVx
— Dinos Trigonis (@trigonis30) August 29, 2022
As is expected of him, D’Cean has played a pivotal role in Bryant’s rise, and while it had been hard for him at times to differentiate between being a father and a coach, the Arizona forward terms his parents a blessing.
“My parents have done a great job separating Dad from Coach,” Bryant said. “It was kind of hard early because we were both basketball heads, and you want to talk as much as possible about basketball. But for us to separate the two and be able to know when we should be talking basketball and when we should just be talking about life in general, we find a great balance.”
D’Cean admitted that he knew his son had the tools to make it big in his basketball career, and now the scouts are saying the same thing. While he only averaged 6.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 1.0 assists last season, the stats don’t tell the whole story regarding his potential, as he’s seen as a project-type prospect, and is even projected to be a top-three pick.
