Now there is just one.

Miami senior guard Durand Scott is the last Rice alum standing now that Cincinnati’s Jermaine Sanders, Kansas State’s Shane Southwell and VCU’s Melvin Johnson are all out.

“It’s only something you dream of, you don’t necessarily think you’re going to get this point but when you put in the work over the summer and the spring you think all that work would get you to this point,” Scott, a Bronx native, said Wednesday, one day ahead of Miami (29-6) meeting Marquette (25-8) in an East Regional semifinal in Washington, D.C.

Scott initially chose Miami over Pitt, UCLA, Louisville, St. John’s and others, surprising some with his choice.

And after three years of patience, the decision has paid off. Miami won the ACC regular season and tournament titles and is now a No. 2 seed in the Big Dance.

Playing in his first NCAA Tournament as a senior, Scott is heating up at the right time.

Scott is averaging 13.2 points and 3.9 rebounds on the season, but made five 3-pointers in the first round of the tournament, a 78-49 victory over Pacific. He also hit five 3′s while giving N.C. State a career-high 32 points in the ACC semifinals.

His backcourt mate, Shane Larkin, is averaging 14.5 points, 4.6 assists and 3.8 rebounds, which inspired Marquette coach Buzz Williams to heap praise on both players.

“They’re as good as any backcourt in the country, bar none,” Williams said Wednesday. “Statistically, playing time, defensively. Those guys get so much notoriety offensively that you’re not able to express defensively how good they are.

“Those guys are both pros. I would say probably both long-time pros. They have great intangibles, you can see it by watching them play.

“They play great together. Everybody within their team understands their strengths and weaknesses and when your guards understand that, I think that makes the players around them much better.”

One player who won’t be around them is Miami center Reggie Johnson, who reportedly had surgery Tuesday to repair a minor meniscus issue.

Johnson did not accompany the Hurricanes to Washington on Tuesday night, though could play in the Final Four if Miami wins the East Regional this weekend.

Without the 6-10 Johnson, 6-10 big man Julian Gamble knows he must avoid foul trouble.

“Our game plan isn’t going to change,” Gamble said. “A lot of guys have to step up. I don’t think it’s going to come from one guy, the amount of production that Reggie was giving us and the presence he has in the paint. We have to do it by committee, every guy doing more than they were before, just help fill that void.”

And if they do and overcome Marquette, Scott and the Hurricanes will advance to an Elite Eight matchup against the Indiana-Syracuse winner.

And that would mean a Rice High player in the Big Dance for at least another game.

“Especially with these group of guys I’ve been with my whole career and I couldn’t want to do it with anybody else,” Scott said. “I’m finally here, we are enjoying the moment and we want to continue winning games.”

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The Catholic school that produced Kemba Walker, Andre Barrett, Felipe Lopez and Kenny Satterfield shut down in 2011 for financial reasons, but several Rice players hope to represent the school in this NCAA Tournament.

“It’s really weird being that the school is closed and no more players can come out of there, but it’s great to be one of the last guys to do it,” Cincinnati sophomore forward Jermaine Sanders told SNY.tv in advance of today’s second-round game with Creighton here.

In addition to Sanders, Rice is repped by Miami’s Durand Scott, Kansas State’s Shane Southwell and VCU’s Melvin Johnson, who finished up his career at St. Benedict’s Prep last year after Rice closed.

“I talked to Melvin a couple days ago, just saying, ‘We gotta do what we gotta do to keep the Rice traditon going,’” Sanders said.

Rice closed just weeks after Walker led UConn to the Big East and NCAA Tournaments during a magical run in 2011.

Two years later, that run still inspires Sanders and his former Rice teammates.

“That was great, watching that and just seeing that he was a part of the Rice tradition,” he said, “and what he did was unbelievable.”

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Edgar Sosa,

According to John Calipari’s official website, Sosa drove to the basket with 37.9 seconds remaining in the DR’s 92-68 victory and sustained a compound fracture of his right fibula and tibia.

“From what they’re seeing right now, they’ve just got to place it,” Calipari said on his website. “It’s crazy, nobody fell on him or anything. It’s sad because this kid just had a heck of a game. He had 13 points, eight rebounds and was playing a lot better.”

Sosa was immediately taken to a nearby hospital in Mar del Plata, Argentina, site of the competition. He appears smiling and holding his thumb up in the above picture by the Dominican team.

“It’s one of the most devastating things I’ve ever been through,” Calipari said. “I’ve been through one other thing like this and that’s when Marcus Camby passed out in the hallway during warm-ups. We didn’t know if he had died of a heart attack. That just ripped me apart. This is the same thing.”

Both teams gathered at midcourt and hugged after the game, Calipari’s website reported.

“A wounded soldier, my prayers are with Edgar Sosa, hoping for a speedy recovery, God please heal over him,” teammate Charlie Villanueva tweeted after the game.

Sosa was averaging 8.8 points in the event and had scored 13 points before the injury.

“My hope was that Edgar would have NBA opportunities from this,” Calipari said. “I wanted this to help his career. It was just a freak thing with 35 seconds to go in the game. It’s sad. I hope everyone in Big Blue Nation prays for him that this is a short recovery period and that he resumes his career. He’s a terrific basketball player and a wonderful young man.”

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NEW YORK – The decline of New York City basketball has been a hot topic in recent months.

Last November, The Wall Street Journal ran a much-talked about piece entitled, “New York Loses Allure as a Basketball Mecca.”

The article pointed out that “the city hasn’t produced a consensus first-team All-American since 1993 when Jamal Mashburn, the University of Kentucky forward from Cardinal Hayes High School, was so honored” and that “no player born and raised in New York has been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame since 1996, and that individual was a woman, Nancy Lieberman.”

Yet during Thursday’s NBA Draft, New York could enjoy a boost when two players, Kemba Walker of UConn and Tobias Harris of Tennessee, are expected to go in the first round, while Hofstra’s Charles Jenkins is projected as a second-round pick.

“One, it’s a great accomplishment if all three of those guys get drafted,” said Kimani Young, an assistant coach at Rice High School, which produced Walker.

“If all three of those guys go to the NBA and have success it will motivate some of the younger players that are in high school now and will motivate them to try and work hard and do the same.”

“Guys like Kemba, Tobias and Charles, [New York City] kids that are in high school or in college have all played with or against those guys.”

Walker, who led UConn to Big East and NCAA championships as a junior, said Wednesday he’s excited to learn his fate.

“Anxious, excited, nervous,” he said. “I’m ready, ready to find out where I’m gonna be.”

He said he wished the draft was going to be held at New York’s Madison Square Garden instead of Newark’s Prudential Center, but added, “I just want to be in the NBA.”

DraftExpress.com projects that Walker will go at No. 11 to the Golden State Warriors, and although no one can say for certain, he is expected to become UConn’s 11th lottery pick.

The latest in a long line of great New York point guards, Walker possesses tremendous quickness with the ball, a great step-back move and a tremendous will to win.

“He’s going to be a great player when he gets to the NBA because his drive, his passion and his will to win are all off the charts,” UConn assistant Kevin Ollie, who played 13 seasons in the NBA, told the New Haven Register. “Every level he’s been at, he’s been a winner, so I don’t see that changing when he gets to the NBA.”

If he goes in the top 10 or 11 as expected, Walker would be the highest New York City player drafted since Lamar Odom, a Christ the King product, was chosen fourth overall by the Los Angeles Clippers in 1999.

Odom nearly became a big factor in this current draft when the Lakers tried to deal him to the Minnesota Timberwolves for the No. 2 pick, likely Arizona’s Derrick Williams. The talks reportedly broke down when the Wolves asked for Pau Gasol or Andrew Bynum instead.

The same year Odom was initially drafted, Ron Artest of LaSalle Academy and St. John’s was passed over by the Knicks and taken by the Chicago Bulls at No. 16.

While both Odom and Artest have won NBA championships with the Lakers, New York’s more recent stars have struggled.

Sebastian Telfair of Lincoln was taken No. 13 by the Portland Trail Blazers in 2004, but has had an unremarkable NBA career.

Lance “Born Ready” Stephenson, the all-time leading scorer in New York State history, was taken in the second round last year and barely played as a rookie in Indiana.

“I think people are trying to say, ‘OK, these are guys are going to be superstars’ and they’re not. It’s hard to project somebody in 8th grade and say they’re going to be a superstar.”

Unlike Telfair and Stephenson, Walker was a late-bloomer who likely would’ve landed at Cincinnati if UConn coach Jim Calhoun hadn’t swooped in at the last minute.

The 6-7 Harris is not strictly a New York City guy, having grown up in Dix Hills, N.Y., but he is projected to go in the mid- to late- first round.

“He’s an all-around player,” former Tennessee assistant Steve Forbes told NBA.com. “I don’t know if he has one certain skill that you say is NBA, like, ‘wow.’ But his all-around game, and his basketball IQ … put it this way: He’ll be able to pick things up pretty quickly in the NBA. And as he matures and gets older, his game will catch up.”

The 6-3 Jenkins played at Springfield Gardens High in Queens and is Hofstra’s all-time leading scorer.

Jenkins is motivated to earn an NBA paycheck in order to provide for his niece, Kemoni Allbriton, the daughter of Jenkins’ late brother Kareem, who was shot and killed in Brooklyn in 2001.

“Every time I step on the floor I always have a bad thought in my head of her not eating,” Jenkins said

“This is motivation for me to have the opportunity to at least get her a bank account so where she has her own money to rely on if she doesn’t have it.”

If all three players are drafted, as expected, it won’t suddenly erase all the concerns about Big Apple basketball.

But if these guys go on to have productive NBA careers, perhaps the critics won’t cry so loud.

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Kevin Mickle, a 6-foot-7, 191-pound sophomore wing from Adelphi Academy, will attend the Newark school next season, and Melvin Johnson, a 6-3, 185-pound two guard out of Rice High is considering attending.

“I think it’s a great coaching staff over there that can help me get to a certain point that I want to play,” Mickle said by phone.

St. Ben’s is a prep school and Mickle said he planned to live in the dorms.

Johnson (pictured), Mickle’s teammates on the New York Gauchos, has yet to decide where he will attend in the wake of Rice High closing, but said he’s considering St. Benedict’s, St. Anthony, Lincoln and Brewster (N.H.) Academy.

“I’m going to check it out,” Johnson said of St. Ben’s.

Taylor took over in April and is attempting to rebuild St. Ben’s around rising junior point guard Tyler Ennis, who holds offers from West Virginia, Seton Hall and Rutgers and has interest from Kentucky, Georgetown, Providence, Florida, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Temple.

Taylor is working on bringing in several other players as well, including freshman guard Wa’Mere Murphy of Delaware, as well as several Canadian and African players.

Johnson said he hopes to decide by the end of next month on his future destination.

“It’s not as easy as people think,” Johnson said. “They say if the school closes, you can go here. You gotta worry about playing time. It’s not as easy as it seems.”

When Paterson (N.J.) Catholic shuttered its doors last June, there was a feeding frenzy over its talented players. The program’s top two players, guards Kyle Anderson and Myles Mack, landed at St. Anthony and helped the team win the mythical national championship and go undefeated under Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley.

Rice does not feature as much talent as PC, with Johnson the school’s top player.

He said he holds offers from Xavier, George Mason, Temple, Siena, Hofstra and Iona, with interest from VCU, Temple, Miami and Rutgers.

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“The school is in legitimate jeopardy of closing,” Rice assistant coach Kimani Young told SNY.tv Monday. “The school is exploring options to stay open.”

Young said officials were looking into moving the school to All Saints Middle School or Charles Middle School in Harlem.

“Those are the options being explored right now,” Young said.

Kashif Pratt, a former Rice and Seton Hall standout, told DimeMag.com that school officials had reached out to alumni, including Lopez, about helping to save the school.

“The school might be possibly reopening in a different location,” he said. “We’re calling investors, alumni, families companies, and we’re reaching out to Nike, the biggest shoe company in the world, seeing if they can help. We’re even reaching out to former NBA players who have played against Rice. Hopefully we’ll contact Felipe Lopez, who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated.”

Paterson (N.J.) Catholic shut down last June despite the fact that longtime NBA player Tim Thomas graduated from the school.

The basketball team splintered, with the top two stars, senior guard Myles Mack and junior guard Kyle Anderson, both landing at St. Anthony to play for Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley.

They went on to lead the Friars to an undefeated season and a mythical national championship.

Several other young stars landed at Hudson Catholic.

Rice graduated Jermaine Sanders (Cincinnati), Emmanuel Andujar (Manhattan) and Josh Gomez (Iona), but returns 6-2 junior shooting guard Melvin Johnson, who is considering Iona, among others.

The loss of Rice from the New York Catholic League would leave Christ the King and St. Raymond’s as the conference’s remaining powerhouses.

“It’s gonna affect the Catholic League negatively,” Pratt told DimeMag.com “It’s like taking the bottom team of the NBA D-League and bringing them into the NBA.”

Still, Pratt remains hopeful the school will survive.

“You got great players all around New York City,” he said, “but there’s no way you can talk about New York Basketball without talking about Rice.”

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“After this visit I have to sit down and evaluate all schools and make an informative decision,” Harrow Tweeted Tuesday. “Place where I can [im]prove and will be happy.”

He and his mother, Fern Matthews, are winding up a 10-day, five-school trip that will culminate at St. John’s Wednesday.

They have already visited Kentucky, Texas, Louisville and Georgia.

“The visits are going well,” Matthews said by text. “We will review all the info and Ryan will make his decision by the end of the month.”

Both Matthews and her husband, Mark, were raised in Queens and she previously said “St. John’s is our home.”

St. John’s could also be a potential landing spot for former Arizona point guard Lamont “Momo” Jones of Harlem, who obtained his release Monday and said he hoped to transfer closer to home to be near his grandmother.

During the 2007-8 season, Moe Hicks could have fielded a backcourt at Rice High School that featured Jones and Kemba Walker.

But while Hicks was abroad in Amsterdam on a college all-star tour that September, Jones withdrew from Rice and headed to American Christian (Pa.). He spent his junior year there playing alongside Tyreke Evans before the school closed, forcing him to finish up his high school career at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va.

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Kemba Walker is headed to the NBA.

At a press conference Tuesday at Gampel Pavillion, The Bronx native and Rice High School product confirmed what many had expected.

He will go pro after graduating in three years at UConn.

“I just think it’s the right time for me to go to the NBA,” said Walker.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Andrea Walker, Kemba’s mother, told SNY.tv.

The 6-foot-1 All-American guard led the Huskies to a 32-9 record, including an 11-0 postseason run that ended with UConn’s third national championship. Walker is expected to be a first-round pick, and perhaps the second guard chosen behind Duke’s Kyrie Irving.

“He is a Top 10 pick,” one veteran NBA scout told SNY.tv. “He’s five to 10 on most people’s boards.

Walker averaged 23.5 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.5 assists during his junior season, and scored a school record 965 points, accounting for 45 percent of the Huskies’ offense.

Walker on Tuesday thanked coach Jim Calhoun “for turning me into a man.”

Walker has not yet hired an agent.

“There’s no chance that I’m coming back,” Walker said before joking: “Like coach said, he doesn’t have a scholarship for me.”

Walker will continue his busy week by throwing out the first pitch Wednesday at Yankee Stadium before the Bombers host the Orioles.

Walker is the 13th Connecticut player to leave school early. Center Hasheem Thabeet was the last in 2009.

Walker finishes his career in seventh place on the school’s scoring list with 1,783 points in 111 games.

His departure means Connecticut will return four starters and nine players from its national championship team next season, although Rolando Lamb, the father of freshman wing Jeremy Lamb, told SNY.tv his son may test the NBA waters.

The Huskies also will add another point guard in Ryan Boatright, a blue chip recruit from Illinois.

(The AP contributed)

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HOUSTON

One player, Kemba Walker, was overwhelmed by the moment. He and the Huskies were moving on to the Final Four for the second time in three years.

The other, Lamont “Momo” Jones, and the Arizona assistant, Book Richardson, were crestfallen. Their season, which included a beatdown of defending national champion Duke in the regional semifinal, was suddenly over.

“If there’s anybody I wanted to lose to, which I didn’t, I understand him,” Richardson said of Walker during a phone interview this week.

“We didn’t say a lot,” Walker, a first-team Associated Press All-America, recalled of the group embrace. “[Richardson] just told me that he loved me and to go get a championship. It meant a lot to me.”

A New York native, Richardson is Jones’ Godfather and considers Walker a “nephew” or “little brother.”

He has known Jones since he was a young boy and met Walker through the New York Gauchos AAU program, where Richardson was a coach. Jones and Walker then teamed up for two years in the backcourt at Rice High School.

“I met him the summer going into my junior year,” Walker said of Richardson. “He wasn’t even my coach at the time. He was coach of the older [Gauchos] team, but sometimes I would travel with the older team and play a little and we just started to have a great relationship. Then the next year, that’s when he coached us, and I was just with him all the time. He would travel with us to camps … he was just there all the time.”

During the summer of 2007, Richardson coached a powerhouse 17-and-under team that featured Walker and a Who’s Who of future Division 1 talents.

“When you start looking at that team, at the end of the day, you had guys who could make plays,” Richardson recalled. “I was blessed to have that team because I knew how good they were.”

Back then, Walker would sometimes defer to his talented teammates, including Darryl “Truck” Bryant (now at West Virginia), Jordan Theodore (Seton Hall) and Durand Scott (Miami).

“I think [former Rice coach] Moe Hicks will echo the same sentiment,” Richardson said. “Kemba’s always been dominant. He’s always deferred in terms of he didn’t want to score a lot because guys would say he’s being a ball hog.

“When you think about the summer he had going into his senior year, there wasn’t a better closer in the country.”

Yet Walker was under-recruited coming out of Rice. Cincinnati was initially the first school to pursue him, but UConn jumped in after losing out on Brandon Jennings.

Walker was held in such low regard at Rice, that many doubted whether he would ever see the floor at UConn.

“When Kemba went there [to UConn] as a freshman, I had personally at least 50 people tell me, ‘Why are you letting him go to UConn?’” Richardson said. “

“And I said, ‘It’s going to work because he wants to be there.’”

Much was made of the Jones vs. Walker matchup in the Arizona-UConn game, and Richardson said he hopes Jones learns from the experience and benefits from seeing what Walker has accomplished.

“I think what it did for Momo was it put into perspective how hard it is to get to a Final Four, the things you need to do in terms of maturing and getting better, realizing that what am I going to make of my spring and my summer?” Richardson said.

“Am I going to have a cause, a purpose to get there? Is my purpose going to be bigger than everyone else’s because everyone has a plan, everyone has a purpose to get to the Final Four. It’s those guys who are mentally tougher than everyone else who have that edge all the time. No let up, and that’s been Kemba. He’s been the same way from start to finish.”

Walker will finish his UConn career this weekend, either in the national semifinals against Kentucky on Saturday, or in the national championship game Monday night against either Butler or VCU.

But for Richardson the emotions are still raw, the loss still lingers.

“I’m not sure right now if I’m ready to watch it, especially when they play against Kentucky where [assistant] Orlando Antigua is a brother to me,” he said. “He and his brother [St. Raymond’s coach Oliver Antigua], we’ve been together since we were 14, 15 years old from St. Raymond’s on. It’s tough to watch those games. Having a close relationship with [John] Calipari, with [assistant] coaches Kenny Payne [and] Rod Strickland.

“It’s just tough because you don’t want anyone to lose and I really want Kemba to do well. I want him to win.

“It’s just I’m not watching it.”

(Phil Chardis contributed reporting)

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But one look at the remaining teams in the NCAA Tournament reveals that the Big Apple is represented well.

Kemba Walker of UConn, Lamont “Momo” Jones and Kevin Parrom of Arizona, Doron Lamb of Kentucky and Erving Walker of Florida are all from New York.

And all began their careers at New York City Catholic schools.

“It shows the consistency of the Catholic school league to produce top prospects each year,” said Moe Hicks, who coached both Kemba Walker and Jones at Rice High School and is now the director of operations at St. John’s.

“True student-athletes who are not only hooping at a high level, but also achieving academic success in the classroom.”

Two of the New York City players — Lamb and Jones — also played together at basketball powerhouse Oak Hill Academy. Along with Roscoe Smith of UConn, Oak Hill has three players still alive in the tournament.

Lamb, whose Kentucky team will meet North Carolina in an Elite Eight matchup here Sunday, spent two years at Bishop Loughlin before departing for Oak Hill.

During his time with the New York Gauchos 15-and-under AAU team, Lamb looked up to the 17-and-under team that in the summer of 2007 won the Vegas Main Event, the Peach Jam and the Cactus Classic.

That squad featured Kemba Walker and current Big East players Jordan Theodore of Seton Hall, Darryl “Truck” Bryant of West Virginia and Devin Hill of DePaul.

“I know them very well,” Lamb recalled. “I played a lot of AAU basketball with them, Kemba and Momo.

“I always cheer for them, always hope they do great. Kemba’s playing great [at UConn], probably the best in the country right now. Momo’s doing great, leading the [Arizona] team where he’s at right now.”

Still, despite his New York roots, Lamb chose to leave the city for Oak Hill in the summer of 2008. He said he consulted with Oak Hill alums Ron Mercer, Kevin Durant and Nolan Smith before making his decision.

“They said it was great situation for me to get my better in my game and get better in my schoolwork, so that’s why I went there,” he said.

Lamb said it was difficult socially spending two years in Mouth of Wilson, Va., after coming from Queens.

“When you go to Oak Hill, it’s like a mission really,” he said. “You focus on your schoolwork and you play basketball. There’s nothing to do out there really. There’s like cows and farms and all that stuff. There’s nothing to do out there except focus on basketball and schoolwork. That’s the main reason I went out there.”

Oak Hill coach Steve Smith said Lamb’s game has evolved over time, from when he first arrived at the school to when he left to where he is now at Kentucky.

“He had a New York style to him, to his play and kind of a playground toughness when he first got here,” Smith said.

“He was a driver and slasher, a scorer. His shot developed while he was at Oak Hill and obviously this year while he was at Kentucky. He wasn’t a real good 3-point shooter when he first got to us but he developed that. This year he was shooting near 50 percent from three (47 percent).”

After spending two years at Rice and one at American Christian (Pa.), Jones was interested in coming to Oak Hill in 2008 but Smith didn’t have a spot for him. Only after point guard Tommy Mason-Griffin bailed did one open up.

“I got back with Momo’s mom,” Smith said. “He hadn’t enrolled anywhere. I said, ‘I’ve got a spot for him if he wants to come.’”

That 2008-9 Oak Hill team went 40-0 before losing its only game of the season to Findlay Prep in the final of the inaugural  ESPN Rise National High School Invitational.

Two years later, noted television analysts continue to say that Jones is “out of Rice High School,” but in fact he finished up at Oak Hill.

“If you ask Momo, he claims Oak Hill,” Smith said. “He was very proud to play at Oak Hill. He know the players that played there before him. He knew the point guards.”

The list of Oak Hill point guards is legendary, stretching back from former New York legend and current Kentucky assistant Rod Strickland to Marcus Williams to Steve Blake to Rajon Rondo to Brandon Jennings.

All told, Smith has had 12 players make the Final Four.

After UConn and Arizona square off in an Elite Eight Matchup Saturday night, either Jones or Smith will make it 13.

And if Lamb and Kentucky beat North Carolina, the number will grow to 14.

“I’ll root for both of them,” Smith said of Jones and Roscoe Smith. “We know we’re going to have an alum in the Final Four.”

New York City is certain to be represented in the Final Four, too.

“In New York you got great guards and players and that’s how we’re advancing right now,” Lamb said, “with great players.”

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