By Dylan Butler
Salvadore Patricio and Vic Morris both entertained the idea of using their appearance in the Reebok ABCD camp as a way to impress the hundreds of college coaches in the stands at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Rothman Center and possibly raise their stock.
But in the end, the two senior guards from Queens chose the school that expressed an interest from the beginning as both players verbally committed to Hofstra University.
Patricio, a 6-foot-2 shooting guard out of Bryant High, made his decision Sunday, a day after Morris, a 6-foot point guard at Cardozo, made his intentions known.
“There were a lot of big-time coaches here but I just thought Hofstra was the best fit,” Patricio said Sunday. “Sometimes kids hold out for a bigger school and they don’t make it.”
Patricio, a Woodside native who averaged 30 points per game for Bryant last year, said he will attend a prep school in Fort Myers, Fla. in the fall to concentrate on reaching NCAA academic requirements.
Playing on a team that included Greg “Playstation” Johnson and Sheraud Curry from Wheeler High in Georgia, who scored 44 points against Cardozo last year, Patricio averaged 7.7 points and 2.1 assists per game.
“I have to admit, I was a little nervous when I first got here,” said Patricio, who has attended the ABCD camp as a fan for three years, watching friends Charlie Villanueva, LeBron James and Travis Outlaw. “There are a lot of people here and the exposure is great. I’m just having fun. I like it.”
Morris, an enigmatic four-year varsity player at Cardozo, received advice from close friend Kenny Adeleke, a junior forward at Hofstra who attended Robeson High and was a counselor at the ABCD camp.
“Hofstra started showing me interest my sophomore year when I went to a team camp there and had a great time,” said the St. Albans native, who averaged 6.3 points per game at ABCD and chose Hofstra over Rhode Island and the University of Massachusetts. “Hofstra was the school that showed the most interest in me.”
Morris was one of three players from Cardozo invited to the ABCD camp. He joined highly touted forward Theo Davis and hard-working Drew Gladstone.
Gladstone, who has drawn interest from Ivy League schools Brown and Columbia as well as Hartford, realized early in the camp he wasn’t likely going to get many chances to shoot.
So the 6-foot-5 senior forward from Bayside did other things, such as play defense, crash the boards and distribute the ball.
“At an event like this, you can’t hate on guys because they’re trying to get theirs,” said Gladstone, who averaged 5.7 points, 2.6 rebounds per game and shot 50 percent from the field. “You have to work around it to try and make yourself look better and doing the little things. … Coaches notice that.”
While Patricio and Morris chose the ABCD camp as the locale to announce their college choice, Will Harris is hoping to wait to make his decision official.
“Something that I’ve always wanted to do was to commit at the McDonald’s All-American game,” said the 6-foot-7 forward from LeFrak City. “If I make it then that’s where I want to commit, but I might just end up committing in the fall.”
After two years at Christ the King, Harris transferred to Redemption Christian Academy in Troy, N.Y., where he has spent the last two seasons.
“Sometimes I think about it like, ‘Oh, I could have been to the state championships; I could have made all-city or all-state,’ but I have a good setup at Redemption,” Harris said. “It’s very disciplined and tough but basketball-wise it’s good. I get a lot of exposure and I get a lot of growth.”
After a solid performance at an NBA camp in Virginia last month, Harris, whose college list includes big-time programs such as St. John’s, Seton Hall, Virginia Tech, Michigan State and Georgia, struggled to adjust to the ABCD camp and averaged 9.0 points and 4.9 rebounds.
“It’s kind of hard because we have so many good players on my team,” said Harris, who played with blue-chip big men Derrick Caracter and Marquis Young. “But I just have to adjust and do what I know I can do.”
While it’s the last chance at exposure for the likes of Patricio, Morris, Gladstone, Davis and Harris, Darius Gabriel will have two more cracks at the three big sneaker-company-sponsored camps.
The Far Rockaway native, whose brother Derrick Gabriel was a standout at Far Rockaway High last year, is considered one of the top up-and-coming guards in the city.
The Bishop Loughlin sophomore averaged 4.0 points and 2.0 rebounds per game and shot 52 percent from the field.
Reach Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 143.
