By Danny Wild
MaxPreps.com
NEW YORK – Did you expect anything less?
MVP awards, swarms of media, a featured game on ESPN, an October arrest – this is the life of Abraham Lincoln High School’s Lance Stephenson, and the boys basketball season hasn’t even reached Christmas yet.
Stephenson, the nation’s most visible and highly-touted high school basketball talent, has a few things on his plate over the next five months: establishing himself as the elite talent he’s portrayed himself as, become the first player to take Lincoln to four city championships and three state titles, graduate and, so he says, finally decide on a college in April.
The Coney Island senior remains under the microscope of college coaches, fans, reporters and his parents as he leads the Lincoln Railsplitters into the 2009 campaign.
For those viewers joining the program in-progress, Stephenson, in a nutshell, follows ex-Lincoln stars Stephon Marbury and Sebastian Telfair into the world of basketball stardom. He had his own web-based documentary chronicle his junior season on BornReady.tv, battled NBA stars at Rucker Park, led his team to another state title at Madison Square Garden in ’08 and generally sits primed for an enormous career.
But there’s more to Lance.
"Sometimes I regret being a top player," Stephenson told Rick Herrin of the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram last week. "Everything you do, somebody’s going to hear about it."
Correct. Lance was memorably suspended from school for five days last season after cutting a teammate with a piece of glass in a school brawl. He made it back to the court and finished the season, albeit with somewhat of a growing label on his name. Coaches and colleges, for the most part, were still drooling over his potential services.
"He’s always stayed competitive and stayed on-course," Stephenson’s father, “Stretch,” told the paper.
On-course is a stretch in itself; are colleges still eager for Lance’s talent? Lance was arrested in October was for sexually abusing a 17-year-old girl inside his school, police said. He was charged with a Class B misdemeanor when police said he groped a woman's breasts and buttocks over her clothing on Oct. 3.
"It’s been a long road, and I’m glad it’s coming to an end,” Stephenson’s mother, Bernadette, said of her son’s high school career. “We’re ready to move on to the next level.”
That all happened after he was wooed by St. John’s and former Knicks star Anthony Mason a month earlier. The arrest forced Lance to cancel an appearance at Kansas. His list of potential Division I schools has reportedly been whittled – or shriveled – down to Kansas, Memphis, USC and St. John’s (North Carolina, UCLA and Indiana, among others, are apparently no longer in the mix).
ESPN analyst Jimmy Dykes called Lance “a bit lackadaisical in his approach to the game” during Lincoln’s 77-57 loss to Duncanville (Texas) in the Old Spice Classic on ESPN last week. Stephenson was named MVP of the game – he finished 13-of-21 from the field for 32 points, but Lincoln’s coach, Dwayne Morton, disagrees.
“I think a lot coaches would love to have a kid who could put ball in the hole the way he does,” Morton told the Dallas Morning News of his star senior, who entered the night averaging 34.3 points per game.
SNY’s Adam Zagoria reported that Kansas head coach Bill Self was also in attendance to check out Lance. The real news from the week was Stephenson’s decision on college.
"I’m just taking my time, and I will decide after the season in April," Stephenson told the Star-Telegram. He told the paper that skipping school for a pro contract in Europe is “not an option.”
Ironically, Marbury has been the center of a lot of drama in the city as well. Dime Magazine featured Stephenson on its cover with a headline claiming Lance “would be an NBA star right now.”
Herrin’s feature on Lance also touched upon the Brooklyn star’s relationship with his parents, which was also often comically portrayed in his web documentary.
The Lance & Lincoln show are scheduled to appear twice more this year on ESPN: Jan. 19 against LeFlore (Ala.) on EPSNU and Feb. 13 against New Jersey powerhouse St. Patrick on ESPN2.
Rank ‘em
Lincoln (3-1) is ranked No. 6 in ESPN’s RISE FAB 50 boys basketball rankings this week. Manhattan power Rice High School was ranked No. 14 and Brooklyn’s Boys and Girls placed No. 50.
Locally, four New Jersey teams cracked the Top-25 – St.Patrick (Elizabeth) was ranked No. 2 behind California’s Mater Dei; St.Benedict’s of Newark ranked No. 4, St. Anthony of Jersey City came in No. 20and Paterson Catholic was No. 24.
Lincoln ranked No. 4 in ESPN’s East Region Top 20; Section 1’s Mount Vernon came in No. 19 on that list.
MaxPreps has yet to release its first national rankings, so feel free to check out ESPN’s list.
USA Today’s Super 25 ranked Lincoln No. 2 last week, up a spot from the previous week and right behind undefeated Mater Dei of Santa Ana, Calif.
SNY Invitational
Some of the city’s best will face off again in the second annual SNY Invitational next month. The four-school tourney will be Jan. 23-24 at the Coles Sports Center at NYU and features Thomas Jefferson against Mount Vernon and Bronx power St. Raymond facing Brooklyn’s Boys and Girls. Lincoln won the 2008 invitational, 86-55, over Cardozo.
SNY has a nice piece on Boys and Girls’ sophomore Mike Taylor, who said the Kanagroos are “looking forward to playing in that on TV.” Boys and Girls finished 27-5 and reached the PSAL championship game at Madison Square Garden last year, losing to Lance Stephenson and Lincoln. That came a year after the teams battled in midtown in a game that prompted a riot on 34th Street.
Zagoria reports the Boys and Girls boys program and head coach Ruth Lovelace will be featured on ESPN on Dec. 21 in a two-hour special, "A Woman Among Boys.” Lovelace enters her 15th season leading the boys' squad in 2008-09.
The Big Apple Basketball Invitational is also around the corner on Jan. 19 and 21 at Baruch College. Schedules and teams have yet to be announced.
Loss of faith in NYC?
There was another interesting report this summer that St. Raymond’s Kevin Parrom bailed on the Bronx program for a Connecticut prep school after he allegedly punched coach Oliver Antigua in the face. His departure from St. Ray has been part of a growing trend of kids ditching the city’s Catholic League.
Jefferson dedicated to winning
Jefferson and Joel Wright knocked off Boys and Girls last Monday, 73-58. Wright dropped 24 points and grabbed 23 rebounds while Keith Spellman added 17 points.
The impressive win comes after a nightmare autumn for the program – Jefferson assistant coaches Tyrone David and Kenny Jones were both shot in separate Brooklyn incidents in October. Davis was killed and, according to the New York Daily News, Jones remains hospitalized.
"Not a day goes by where we don't miss these guys," Jefferson coach Lawrence Pollard told the News. The team has since said they are dedicating the season to their fallen coaches.
Davis was shot in the chest on Martin Luther King Jr. Place in Bedford-Stuyvesant by a lone gunman who fled, according to cops. Davis, 52, was pronounced dead at Woodhull Hospital.
Jefferson’s girls program, 16-5 last year and 2-0 already, is also expected to compete for a city title this winter.
PSAL Leaders
Here’s a glance at the Top-5 scoring leaders in the PSAL. Of note, Stephenson, through three games, ranks No. 14 with 103 points.
1. Steven Edwards (Robert F. Wagner Jr) 155 points
2. Jeremy Smith (Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy) 139 points
3. Delano Morgan (South Bronx) 131 points
4. Gregory Noel (Midwood) 115 points
5. Kevin White (Jane Addams) 114 points
5. Alan Tse (Stuyvesant) 114 points
5. Aldin Medunjanin (Beacon School) 114 points
Danny Wild is a writer and photographer for MaxPreps and can be reached at danny@danny-wild.com
