Golden State Warriors rookie Brandin Podziemski saw a familiar face in the crowd on Saturday in Milwaukee.

On Saturday evening, the Golden State Warriors, playing without star point guard Stephen Curry, dropped to 18-21 on the 2023-24 NBA season with a road loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. Curry missed the game due to rest on the second night of a back-to-back, and although Golden State was able to keep things relatively competitive, ultimately the talent differential against the Bucks was too much for them to overcome.

One Warriors player who stepped up in Curry’s absence was rookie guard Brandin Podziemski, who scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the contest. Podziemski hails from the Milwaukee area, and as it turns out, there were several familiar faces in the crowd to see him play.

“I had a lot of people,” said Podziemski, per Warriors on NBCS on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “I ran into my seventh grade English teacher pregame, haven’t seen her in a while. Yeah, had a lot of people here. A lot of people that I’ve met along my journey, so it’s just been cool for me to see familiar faces… [The English teacher] said she’s glad I went to military school or else I would have been a trouble maker.”

Brandin Podziemski has been a rare bright spot in what has otherwise been a season of disappointment so far for the Warriors this year. The rookie guard has shown a wide array of offensive skills in the opportunities he’s been given, giving Warriors fans at least some beacon of hope for the future even as the team continues to struggle in the present.