Ahead of St. John’s game, Duke watches Cole Anthony
Ahead of Saturday's game against St. John's
By DAVID DORSEY
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Two sons of retired professional athletes, each considered a top-five high school basketball player in the junior class, led their teams in head-to-head competition in the City of Palms Classic on Tuesday.
The big man’s team won, and he sent the higher-ranked, higher-hyped, Briarwood (N.Y.) Archbishop Molloy, to its Fort Myers, Fla., hotel with the goal of regrouping.
Molloy junior point guard Cole Anthony, son of former NBA point guard Greg Anthony, and 7-foot-2 senior teammate Moses Brown, one of the best guard-post combinations in the nation, combined for 35 points but lost 75-64 to Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) University School in the Classic’s first round at Florida SouthWestern State College’s Suncoast Credit Union Arena.
University School’s Vernon Carey Jr., the 6-9, 245-pound son of former Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Vernon Carey Sr., scored a game-high 23 points and grabbed eight rebounds in leading his team to victory while handing Molloy (2-1) its first loss of the season.
NEW YORK — Cole Anthony does not have pleasant memories of the final basketball game of his sophomore season at Archbishop Molloy High School.
Anthony missed on his attempted layup with three seconds left in regulation and the Stanners lost to Cardinal Hayes, 64-62, in the CHSAA Class AA Intersectional championship at Fordham University’s Rose Hill Gym.
To this day, Anthony blames himself for the team’s loss.
“We weren’t ready to play, the whole team,” the 6-foot-3, 180-pound Anthony told me last week in the Molloy gym in Briarwood. “None of us came to play. I remember the practice before, dudes were smiling. And that’s probably on me, it was probably on me not to put them mentally in check, but we weren’t ready for that game.”
NEW YORK — Moses Brown’s thunderous dunk late in the game Friday night brought the standing-room only crowd at Archbishop Molloy High School to its feet amid a chorus of oohs and aahs.
But it was Khalid Moore’s splendid drive and pass that set up the flush.
The 6-foot-6 junior wing enjoyed the best game of his career with 21 points and 9 rebounds as Molloy beat Christ the King, 78-67, amid a highly-charged atmosphere that saw school officials turning away fans, and at least one college coach, at the doors before the game on the orders of fire marshals.
“Yeah, I think it was one of my breakout games,” Moore, who entered averaging 9.3 points, told me afterward. “I was struggling before, but I just came out with the intensity, I played aggressive and I think I did very good.”
NEW YORK – Kentucky assistant Tony Barbee was the latest high-profile coach to pass through the historic hallways of Archbishop Molloy High School on Wednesday.
Barbee came to watch 7-foot-1 Class of 2018 big man Moses Brown and 2019 point guard Cole Anthony, the son of former NBA point guard Greg Anthony.
“[Barbee] didn’t offer them,” Molloy assistant John Magna said Thursday by phone. “He said he’d be back in contact with them. He was on the phone with Cal [Kentucky coach John Calipari] the whole time.”
Louisville coach Rick Pitino, Maryland’s Mark Turgeon, Florida’s Mike White, St. John’s Chris Mullin and Kansas’ Norm Roberts are just some of the coaches who have recently come through the school that produced Kenny Smith, Kenny Anderson and Russ Smith.
NEW YORK — Cole Anthony has definitely noticed a Who’s Who of big-time college basketball programs coming through the Archbishop Molloy gym in recent weeks.
There was Louisville head coach Rick Pitino and Florida coach Mike White on Thursday, along with assistants from UConn, Indiana and Miami.
Maryland’s Mark Turgeon was in on Tuesday.
And assistants from Duke and Kansas have also been in recently.
“It’s a lot different than last year,” Anthony told me Thursday. “I mean, going from open gyms having no coaches to having a lot of coaches on the East Coast coming out here. Honestly, it’s a blessing. We all worked for it. Me, Khalid [Moore], Moses [Brown], everybody in here, we all worked for it and it’s just an honor.”
