Imagine how formidable a backcourt would be with Bryson Cokley ‘24 and Dacen Petty ’26 running the floor at the same time?
They missed each other by one year at Christ School.
No further need for imagining in high school what will soon be a reality in college – Dacen announced his verbal commitment to play college basketball for Elon University on Wednesday through his social media.
The Phoenix posted Thursday that Dacen has signed, which means he will be future teammates with Bryson, who was one of the Greenies’ best success stories in college basketball last winter with averages of 12.3 points, 3.8 rebounds & 1.3 assists in 27 minutes played per game. Bryson worked his way off the bench to become a starter at Elon as a true sophomore.
As for Dacen, the 6-foot-5 guard from Forest City was the leading scorer for the Greenies (21-13) as a senior with 16.3 points per game, supplemented by averages of 3.4 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.4 steals. He left a mark on the Christ School record book with a 37-point game, and a 31-point game, both this winter. Dacen made more than 100 3-pointers in his two-year career, including 64 as a junior when the Greenies three-peated as NCISAA 4-A state champions.
No synopsis of Dacen’s career would be complete without talk about his putback dunk in Christ School’s season-opening 66-64 win over visiting Fayetteville Academy. A video clip of the dunk went viral with 3 million views across all platforms, 2.5 million of those coming from Instagram. The call of the play and reaction from student commentators Wait McCormick ’26 and Jack Woltz ‘28 was picked up by ESPN and SLAM Magazine.