LOUISVILLE, KENT. — Playing basketball around mid-Missouri has given Linn’s Carley Brandt and Heslie Higginbotham plenty of opportunities to measure themselves against good competition.

Their summer club schedules gave them a considerably larger measuring stick.

Brandt and Higginbotham were among several Linn athletes who competed in the 2026 TFN Run 4 Roses Classic at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Kent., an event billed as the largest grassroots girls basketball exposure event in the world.

For Higginbotham, Louisville was not the end of the summer journey. She later traveled to Chicago with Missouri Phenom for the Nike National Tournament of Champions, held July 24-27.

The two Linn players took different paths to Louisville, playing for separate club programs, but each has spent several years developing alongside her respective team.

Brandt plays for Mid-Mo Mercury and joined the program while she was in eighth grade. “I found a team my eighth-grade year, and I’ve been playing with them ever since,” Brandt said.

Higginbotham’s story is similar. “So I played for Missouri Phenom, and I was also asked my eighth-grade year to play on this team,” Higginbotham said. “I played there ever since.”

That continuity has made club basketball about considerably more than accumulating games during the summer.

Years of practices, tournaments, road trips and competition have allowed both players to develop relationships with teammates and coaches while also seeing a level of basketball extending far beyond the teams they normally encounter during the high school season.

That became particularly evident in Louisville.

The Kentucky Exposition Center provided a setting unlike anything the Linn players ordinarily experience. The massive complex hosted games across dozens of courts, bringing teams and players from a wide geographic area into the same building.

“There were a lot of different teams there,” Higginbotham said.

The tournament generally attempted to keep teams from facing opponents they already knew from their own areas, further expanding that experience. Higginbotham recalled meeting players and coaches from Canada, while the Linn athletes also encountered teams from other parts of the United States.

For players accustomed to competing primarily in Missouri, it offered a quick reminder of how much basketball talent exists elsewhere.

“I feel like it showed me how many other good players are out there, not just in this area,” Brandt said.

That exposure was one of the biggest benefits of the trip.

“The level of competition it brings you to compete against makes you a better player by being with those people and in those environments,” Higginbotham said.

Club basketball also forces players to adjust to a different style.

The game can be more physical, defenses more aggressive, and the pressure on ball-handlers considerably greater than players may routinely encounter in school competition. “The way you have to handle the ball is tougher than in high school ball,” Brandt said. “They’re more aggressive.”

Higginbotham agreed that there is a noticeable jump when moving from school basketball into high-level club competition. “From club compared to school, I definitely think the competition is a lot tougher,” she said.

The results in Louisville reflected that competition.

Higginbotham helped MO Phenom Col 17U Finley finish 2-2 in the Gold Championship Bracket. Both losses came against teams that eventually won the Platinum and Gold championships.

Brandt and Mid-Mo Mercury competed in the Silver Championship Bracket, finishing 1-3. Mercury ended its tournament on a positive note with a victory by more than 20 points in its final game.

The records, however, were only part of what the two brought home.

For Brandt, some of the strongest memories have little to do with a final score.

“My biggest takeaway was probably the relationships I made with the people on my team,” she said. “My coach, he’s a great person, not only a coach, but all my teammates really are.”

Those relationships carry additional meaning as players grow older and eventually move in different directions.

“When I see them in the future, we’re not going to be as close, but we’ll still have those memories together,” Brandt said. “I think it was a really good experience.”

The scale of the Louisville event itself also left an impression.

With basketball seemingly taking place everywhere inside the massive complex, the tournament could be difficult to absorb while it was happening.

“It goes by so quickly,” Higginbotham said. “You don’t even realize it’s going by.”

There was also time to see at least a little of Kentucky beyond the basketball court, including downtown Louisville and some of the area associated with the Kentucky Derby.

“Kentucky was very beautiful,” Brandt said. “I will say that is the most beautiful state I’ve ever been to.”

Brandt and Higginbotham were not the only Linn athletes gaining experience in Louisville.

Jade Miller competed with MO Phenom Col 16U Kylum in the Silver Championship Bracket. Her team finished 1-3, with Miller connecting on three 3-pointers to help lead the team to its victory.

Bella Skirvin competed with MO Phenom Col 13U JackLaw in the Gold Championship Bracket, where her team finished 2-2.

For Brandt and Higginbotham, meanwhile, the end of club basketball meant quickly changing gears.

Both are multi-sport athletes at Linn, with Brandt moving into volleyball and Higginbotham into softball as the fall season approached.

Brandt said having some separation between basketball seasons can be useful after months of competition.

“I love both sports,” she said. “I will say that I think I like to take a break between those just so I don’t get burnt out.”

That does not mean basketball disappears from her mind once volleyball begins.

“I still miss basketball when I’m playing volleyball,” Brandt said. “Especially when I get really mad at volleyball, and then I’m like, ‘Dang, I really want to go play basketball right now.’”

By winter, she and Higginbotham will be back on the basketball court for Linn.

They will return with something they did not have before the summer — experience competing in enormous venues against unfamiliar players from well beyond mid-Missouri, and another season of lessons collected with club teammates they have grown up alongside.

The games in Louisville and Chicago eventually ended, but they brought that experience home.